Wow! $15,000 for a plain Jane 1911 dated 1912. I am out of touch with these prices.
Obviously condition and rarity are everything and I suppose this must be one of the most minty of the 1912s and being brand new, I have no clue how many were made let alone exist today. Just strikes me as not a particularly rare animal.
Then again, $15,000 isn’t exhorbitant. I just can’t get my head around a 1911 that expensive that wasn’t owned by some historic figure with provenance that gives that gun such a rarity, such as if it was carried by Dwight Eisenhower or some such thing. Then it would be far above $15,000 of course.
Good thing I am not shopping these days.
The finish changed very early on Colt M1911s, from a mirror-polished blue to the more familiar “Colt brushed blue”, and of those few pistols, not many survived with the original finish. And, as with the scarce Springfield Armory-made M1911s, many would have been used up in World War I.