Trego's Mountain Ear

Italian manufacturers began shipping black powder replica revolvers to the US in 1958 – one of the first to get into production was Aldo Uberti, and since he didn’t have a manufacturer’s license he was partnered with a guy named Gregorelli.  These early replicas -1851 Navy Colts – were copies of an original, that (according to the story I heard) had been smuggled in to Italy by an American Army officer, and was returned as a box of spare parts along with the first batch of replicas sent to Val Forgett of Navy Arms. 

They were popular, and sold well during the centennial observation of the war between the states.  That means we have over 60 years worth of Italian made replica pistols in the US – and it’s kind of nice to be able to tell how old that revolver that looks like new actually is.  My most recent purchase looks like it hasn’t been fired since it was proofed back in 1982.  My first was proofed in 1973 – and it shows that it has been carried and fired quite a bit.

So the first place I found a list of proof marks and dates was on the Howell Arms page – FAQ | Howell Arms .  The list is good, but my old revolver showed me it wasn’t perfect – my proof mark is XX9 – the list has it down as XXIX.  The guys proof-testing the revolvers were Italians, and they had no problem using the Arabic 9 instead of the Roman IX.

They started with Roman Numeral I in 1946 – but we’re not likely to find any replicas marked before 1957, so my chart starts then:

And it looks like they have a proofmark system going now that will last until 2099 with no need to type in a longer chart.  These marks are found on the lower right side of the frame.

There is a great article on the beginnings of the replica revolver production at The Birth of the Reproduction Percussion Revolver Industry – very much worth reading.