12/1/20 - This is an example of a very rare Colt Government Model "Russian" contract semi-automatic pistol. In the 1914-1916 years, the Russian Army was severely short of arms and ammunition and was forced to purchase thousands of weapons from abroad based on credits that the Russian Government had negotiated with Great Britain. These credits were supported by the Gold reserves held in Russia, however all the contracts had to be placed with Great Britain on behalf of Russia. In this way Russia was able to purchase Colt pistols through Great Britain. So during the 1916-1917 timeframe Russia purchased approximately 51,000 Colt Model 1911 commercial pistols. These were standard Colt commercial models that didn't have any specific Russian acceptance proofs, however the left side of the frame is marked in Cyrillic letters "АНГЛ. ЗАКАЗЬ", which roughly translate to “English Order” or “British Contract”. These are an extremely rare pistol as almost no examples were ever imported into this country. These pistols fall into the serial number range of "C23000 to C89000", with this example falling almost right in the middle of the production run. This particular example has clearly been touched up with cold blue at some point, likely years ago as it has turned brown. There's also some minor freckling on the slide. The grips show some smoothing and handling wear but no cracks or chips. Bore has some frost and freckling in the grooves. Two-tone magazine.
