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Does anybody know anything about this pistol?
Amoskeag March/24

serial #1, 32 ACP, 3 3/4” barrel with a mostly bright very good plus bore showing a little mild oxidation and strong rifling. This lovely pistol is nicely engraved in the factory style attributed to Savage factory engraver Enoch Tue characterized by his lighter flowing foliate scrollwork. The engraving appears to be Class III Special Grade distinguished by the finely stippled background shading which accents the flowing foliate scrollwork throughout. The detailing of the scrollwork is a bit lighter than that seen on other pictured Class III examples but is tastefully executed. There are some additional light zigzagging and geometric motifs along the frontstrap and sides of the triggerguard, and small starburst on the safety, consistent with other examples pictured in “Savage Pistols” by Brower. The metal surfaces retain about 96% original gold wash with most of the loss due to some mild silvering along the high edges of the slide, a few scattered very fine pinprick pits and other areas of slight thinning. The grips are the early checkered sheet metal variety with “SAVAGE QUALITY” logo in the centers, they retain about 98% silver finish which has taken on a pleasant medium tarnish, the magazine release also silver-plated. The magazine is similarly gold-washed as the pistol and the top of the slide shows the correct early factory markings. The other markings on the gun are rather peculiar, the front edge of the frame stamped with a circled “E” and circled “1”, and the bottom heel of the frame also with a lone “1”. Normally an early variation pistol would have its serial number stamped on the curved portion of the frame ahead of the triggerguard, and this frame also shows the “FIRE” and “SAFE” markings which were added around serial number 19500. It does however have the correct earliest style safety lever and the internal parts appear to be of correct early style as well. The pistol also includes an original factory black paper-covered box with orange end label that remains in very good condition. The lid flaps show some tears, the front flap missing and the hinge with old tape repairs. The end label and lid caution label are very fine and the base shows “933934” and “#E1” in black ink along with some very faded penciled scribblings. An original circa 1913 instruction pamphlet showing some tears and small tape repairs is housed within the box. There is much speculation in the Savage Pistols book about the first serialized 1907, including a story and inspection report about a serial #1 in Australia. Brower and his colleagues believe the true original serial #1 to have been a factory reject not released for commercial sale. When this pistol was offered by James D. Julia twelve years ago it was purported to have been purchased directly from descendants of Arthur Savage. Whatever its elusive history may hold, it nevertheless remains a very attractive and fine piece for the Savage collector. (13E11313-5) {C&R} [Ex-Wes Adams Collection] (15,000/20,000)

I'm sure Savage1907 will have input.

The wear on those grips definitely does not match the gun. And from what I've seen and from Bailey's book, they weren't stamping the serial number on the front of the frame when serial number 1 was made - they were stamping them on the bottom in front of the trigger guard.

So???

Maybe the answer is as simple as it got a factory refurb at some point and they restamped the serial number. Who am I to know? Bailey's book had something on serial number 1 guns.. is this one of them?

Here's the listing from the Julia auction - jamesdjulia/item/lot-1133/savage-pistol I always found it suspect that it supposedly came from the Savage family since Arthur Savage was out of the company early in 1905 before the pistols were made and also was suing the company in 1907... was this supposed to be part of his settlement? A lot of the description seems a little suspicious, like missing documentation. John Wright had told me at the time that this pistol was not genuine, but I don't know what he based that on. It states the cataloger owned this gun, initials LM for Leroy Merz according to my conversation with J.R. LaRue about another lot. A lot of the other guns came through Mr. Merz and a lot of them had issues if I remember correctly.

I believer there are possibly two more No 1's out there, here's one of them - museumsvictoria/items/397800

There were a number of descriptions done by 'LM' that had a lot of bad information. I talked with J.R. LaRue about one and it was so incorrectly represented they pulled it from the on-line auction and corrected the description before it was auctioned only in house. It was a Meriden Model 15 that LM originally described as a rare Model 1913 Savage pump = wrong model, wrong company, wrong everything. He had two Savage Model 1903's described as rare with only about "3000 thousand ever made" even though both had serial numbers over 130,000. These make me suspect of any description by cataloger LM which you find at the bottom of the description. Both 1903's were originally listed as Model 1914's jamesdjulia/item/lot-1143

The comments provided certainly are enough to call into question the authenticity of some of the claims. That issue aside, I would say that many of the firearms that have been “fancied up” like this are gaudy and unattractive to me. From a tree top view, however I find this particular gun very appealing.

It is a Savage 1907 pistol.
It has metal grips and type 1 safety.
The engraving appears to be C-grade Enoch Tue. See p.158 Bailey's book.
Gold wash may be legit? It is a special pistol...

The serial number is mysterious. But not unheard of.
The grips appear to have some holster wear, or lighting issues, or they are replacements because the mother of pearls were broken. ??
AWS provenance? Probably not.
Julia mentions missing documentation. Fine. Still need real documentation.

An in hand inspection could provide other clues. ??

So it appears we know basically "what" we have.
The question is "why"?

Eng./R&D pistol?
Mkt'ing gift?
...