Colt Single Action Army Engraved Sampler Pair

Most engraved Colts show you the work of one hand. This pair shows you the whole studio. Built in 1982 as Colt's own Engraving Sampler, the two Single Action Army revolvers were assembled to display the range of the factory's engraving talent, and they were made for Stan Newman, then head of Colt's Parts Department. That internal commission is the thread that ties everything together.

The two guns work as a matched set with opposite finishes. One wears bright gold with white pearl grips, signed work by Dennis Kies and marked KIES COLT ENGRVR on the frame. Its companion is finished bright nickel, engraved by George Spring, and carries the same flowing American scroll across the frame, barrel, cylinder, loading gate, and ejector housing. Both are Colt Frontier Six Shooter pattern guns built on black powder style frames, with the screws and small parts struck in heat blue against the polished metal.

Look closer and the tribute runs deeper than the metalwork. The cylinders carry sunburst and floral panels, the loading gates are cut with starbursts, and small cabochon stones sit set into the recoil shield and grip frame. The barrel on the gold gun reads COLT FRONTIER SIX SHOOTER over the Hartford address. The pearl grips are engraved with a roll call of Colt's master engravers, names like Henshaw, Nimschke, and Helfricht with their working dates, an artistic handshake passed from one generation to the next.

The set lives in a French fitted hardwood case lined in deep blue velveteen, with a hand engraved silver plaque reading Colt Engraving Sampler. Each revolver keeps its original Colt factory box. For a Colt collector who cares about the engraving tradition as much as the guns themselves, this is documentation and artistry sitting in the same case. There is no second one quite like it.