Colt Single Action Army Third Generation Howard Dove Engraved

The name on the factory letter is what stops you here: Howard Dove. He was a Colt master engraver, and this Single Action Army wears his hand across nearly every surface. The accompanying Colt Archive letter spells it out, Class B custom scroll engraving, gold inlaid animal heads, and a non-fluted cylinder, shipped in May of 1980 to a dealer in Iowa as a single gun in its shipment.

The finish is full Royal Blue, and it does exactly what that finish is supposed to do. Under light the steel runs from deep black to liquid cobalt, and the polished surface throws back every scroll cut Dove laid into it. American-style foliate scroll covers the frame, barrel, ejector housing, and backstrap, broken up by fine gold wire lines that border the major components and trace the frame edges.

Then there are the gold animals. A mountain lion head sits inlaid on the right side of the frame, a bobcat on the left, both raised in dimensional gold against the blue. The non-fluted cylinder is a special-order touch that gives the scroll more canvas to work across, and it carries gold banding front and rear to match the barrel.

The stocks are plain ivory wearing the gold Colt rampant medallion. They show natural age lines and a warm cream color that plays against the dark steel. The 7.5 inch barrel carries the full Colt Hartford address and .45 caliber marking down the left flat, the longest of the standard SAA barrels and the one that balances this much engraving best.

This comes with its fitted wood presentation case and the Colt Archive letter authenticating Dove's work and the original configuration. For a collector chasing factory-engraved Third Generation Colts, a documented Howard Dove gun with named animal inlays is the kind of paper that anchors the whole piece.