I bought one of my holy grail pistols today. I'm posted to Edmonton doing workup training for Afghanistan, and went to the local gunshow on Saturday (much better than the Winnipeg show back home). An old fellow was there with a table full of his very impressive collection of very rare and good quality old military handguns he was getting rid of. And selling at prices that would have been fair 10 years ago. He had a few things that interested me, but a dealer snapped them up as soon as he brought them out.
But when I talked to him afterwards he showed me the list of everything he had, including everything he left at home - which, as it turned out, was the good stuff. As soon as I saw this on the list, I offered him a deposit sight-unseen. He saw my army hoodie and told me I didn't need a deposit. I showed up an hour and a half into the show today carrying $900 cash and he told me he'd already turned down half a dozen offers on it.
Why all the fuss? It's all matching, all original Colt M1911 chambered in .455 Webley & Scott auto as part of the 1919 RAF contract (sorry about the pictures, I just snapped them quick at the show):
These are super-rare, original condition 1911s are hard enough to find, but on top of that most .455 1911s were rechambered to .45ACP by swapping out the barrel and mag - I've seen .455 mags alone sell for $300. You can see it's got the W (for Webley) prefix serial number and "CALIBRE 455" rollmark, the RAF stamp and is covered in British crossed flag proofs.
As an example of how good a deal this was, here's one in similar condition and without the RAF stamping.
http://www.simpsonltd.com/product_in...f059ee4fafceb3 While US prices of original 1911s are higher than Canadian, this was still an amazing bargain.
When I pick up the gun I'm going to look at some of his other stuff, including a Webley-Fosberry he wants $5000 for. I might. There's some other stuff I probably will buy, including a Rast-Gasser M1898, a Webley-Green and Prussian-contract "Red Nine" Broomhandle.