When a gun of that rarity and significance comes along, the first thing I worry about is that it's a fake. There are guys out there who will spend years properly aging a gun to make everything look right, and some are so damn good that even the experts don't catch them.
I gentleman I know did a re-finish job on a Dickson round action 16 bore that was so perfect it took a first place in a Concours event. The judges thought it was essentially a new condition gun, when in fact, it had a good lifetime of hunting before Steve refinished it and made it all right again. Then he told everyone it was refinished, and people were appalled. They thought he was trying to put one over, but he had told a whole bunch of people that he re-did the gun. He just wanted to see if the judges couldn't tell. Well the judges were pissed becuase they couldn't tell (quite honestly, even knowing up front, I couldn't see much evidence of refinish other than the fact a 100 year old gun looked perfect).
Some are just that good with refinishing, but some are just as good with aging (those are the SOB's you have to watch for). The refinish guys are the SOB's you want to know when it comes time to finish your gun.
I learned a little about aging a gun when I bought a Winchester 1897 that was completely brown patina on the right side, and nearly silver on the left side from the way it was stored. So I cleaned up the patina on the right side, and added patina on the left side so the gun didn't look so goofy.
I once saw a S&W #1 that had Jesse James scripted on the backstrap. The gun was well used, and rust pitting went into the scripting. It was a fake, and even under a magnifying glass, I couldn't tell; you had to actually use a microscope to tell (and I still wouldn't know what to look for). But someone engraved the name into an otherwise good #1, and then spent months and months aging that script to blend and look right. Essentially ruined the gun, because now anyone honest is very afraid to sell it lest it get back into counterfeit circulation.
If I had that gun, the first thing I would do is get it authenticated by the best in the business. The one red flag is the rifling issue. 1- being nearly perfect. 2- If it's truly unique from anything else that Colt had at that time, that is suspect; but there can be a good reason.
The rifling should match other .38 revolvers they made at that time because it's not real logical for this one revolver to have a completely unique barrel from other .38 revolvers Colt's made. If they have .38 barrels/barrel-stock around, it makes sense they'd use that and not something unique (unless they were experimenting).
But I don't have a clue off the top of my head if Colt's made any other .38 revolvers that time. 1875 was the year they designed the cartridge, so they obviously had something they were working with, but I don't recall off the top of my head if anything was actually offered to the public that early (I wanna say they didn't have any .38's of any model back then, but I don't trust my memory). If there weren't any others, that really complicates authentication because you have really only have one good source for authentication...the other .38.
The obvious would be to reach out to the owner of the one known and authenticated to see if the barrel rifling matches, as well as everything else.
Looking at the photos, my first reaction is that it's in great shape for a gun of that age. Second is that everything does appear to match in appearance, so it looks righteous from the photos.
If it's the real deal, that is one hell of a great find. I wish you the best of luck. If you get it authenticated, I'd love to hear how it all goes.
