Beretta 98 FS Billenium

Beretta built the Billenium to mark its 500th anniversary, and the way they did it tells you a lot about the company's confidence. Rather than gold inlay and bright engraving, they went the other direction entirely. This is a steel-frame 98 FS dressed in satin gray, with a single-action conversion, a squared trigger guard, and slide flats milled flat and clean. The result is a Beretta that looks like nothing else in the catalog before or since.

The slide carries the Billenium script with a musical-staff motif running off the lettering and a small Aztec sun figure cut into the flat. Look closely and you'll see the fish-scale serrations at the rear of the slide, a touch you won't find on a standard 92 or 98. The controls and barrel are left in bright stainless, which plays against the muted frame, and the factory carbon-fiber grip panels wear the Beretta medallion. Front strap and backstrap are checkered for a positive hold.

This one is chambered in 9x21 IMI. That matters. The Billenium was built primarily for 9mm Parabellum, and the 9x21 versions were destined for European markets where the 9mm Para chambering sits under restriction. You don't see them on this side of the Atlantic often.

Mechanically it's pure Beretta 92/98. Open-slide design, the same double-action first shot and crisp single-action follow-up that put the platform on duty belts worldwide. Production ran to 2,000 pistols total across both calibers.

The set is complete and presents as collected rather than carried. It comes in the blue Billenium presentation case with two magazines, the marked cleaning rod, both manuals, the factory lock, and the outer box. For a collector chasing Beretta's modern commemoratives, the steel frame and the scarce chambering are what make this one worth the search.