Early features include: First type barrel marking, octagonal 3 1/2 inch barrel, half inch priming cut-out, round cylinder with cabin & indian scene, in .28 calibre.
Cased with a two sided “Colts Patent” eagle on the hump flask, “Colt’s Patent” brass bow-legged mould in 28 calibre, a typical period screwdriver, and a japanned “Eley Bros / London” cap tin. All serial numbers verified matching.
Purchase includes a signed copy of “A Collectors Guide to THE COLT ROOT SIDEHAMMER Manufactured 1855 Through 1870” by Malcolm R. Burnette.
From The Burnette Collection.
The Burnette family have owned Model 1 Colt Root, serial number 69, since October 2008. They cased this rare gun with the correct accoutrements.
They bought it at the Houston CCA Show in 2008, from eighty three year old WWII veteran, Jerry Dickson. Jerry was born July 28, 1926, enlisted in the Army Air Corps in July 1943 at the age of 17, graduated from West Point in 1947. He was an Army Air Corps pilot, finally retiring in 1979, from the Illinois Reserve. He had several Colt Roots on his table, which he was selling on behalf of the daughters of S. Gerald Keogh and wife Patricia, who had been longtime friends of his.
Malcolm noticed the Model , serial number 69, lying on the table and bought it. He was informed that this particular Model 1 Root was photographed and published in Keogh’s monograph Sam Colt’s New Model Pocket Pistols: The Story Of The 1855 Root Model Revolver on page 14. Although Keogh never mentioned the serial number of the Model 1 photographed for his book, it can be verified as being the same gun, by looking at the fingerprint, left behind on the gun at the time of being photographed.
We know that this Model 1 Root, serial number 69, has been in the possession of S. Gerald Keogh or his estate from 1964, the date his book was published, until October 2008. The last 45 years of this Root’s 154-year history are confirmed.
