In 92% very fine condition, we have an extremely rare & seldom seen Colt Model 1905 USMC .38 Service Revolver. This is all matching, and the bore is mint as well. The checkered round butt grips are remarkably nice as well. This is chambered in .38 Colt Long which at the time was the primary service cartridge for the United States. The Model 1905 was the frontline sidearm of the Marines from 1905 through 1909, however they stayed in service well after WWI and possibly as late even as WWII they may have seen some service. These pistols saw very hard service and most of the surviving examples are well worn and often have replacement parts cannibalized from other pistols.
Only 812 of these Revolvers were obtained by the Marines, as at the time they were a small force of only around 10,000 men. This is the rarest of the USMC Service Handguns of the 20th Century and locating a surviving example in such a high state of preservation is no small thing! These early USMC revolvers are rabidly collected as they capture all the early romanticism of the Marines at the time that they embarked on all of those foreign adventures under the growing colonial expansionism of the Teddy Roosevelt Era. This is a great piece of United Stated Marine history.
