The guns were neither assembled nor shipped in numerical sequence, and overlaps of several thousand numbers are common! A single shipment of a dozen or soguns often contained serial numbers spanning a range of several thousand, which might be typical of numbers used over a period of two or three years.It is possible to determine the approximate date of manufacture from the serial number by consulting my table of manufacture dates. Regular production began in 1915 and ended in 1977. Those consisted of 126 Target Models, 14 Sport Models, and 11 Match Target Models. The Colt shipping records show that only about 151 first series (pre-World War II) Woodsmans were factory engraved prior to first sale. An identical gun could be created by a skilled craftsman, but it could never be one of the very few ORIGINAL factory engraved Colt Woodsmans. The reason is collectibility based on rarity. Many Colts have been engraved by someone other than a Colt engraver, but regardless of the quality of the engraving they usually will not have comparable value to an original factory engraved gun. In all the years of production, fewer than 250 were engraved at the Colt factory. Why is my engraved Woodsman not worth as much as a factory engraved gun?Īny Colt factory engraved Woodsman is a rarity.There are also some general guidelines for value determination in my Colt Woodsman Pocket Guide at: Value Factors
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