1900 Swiss on Gunbroker

[ithacaartist]

Originally Posted by jeb111

Mike, I noticed the rails also but the end of the muzzle is in the white and there appears to be halos around the B.U.G. proofs on the barrel. One thing I was wondering was there is no mark from moving the safety usually you would see something even a light mark, right?
Jim

The pistol ticks off almost all the boxes for how it should look on the outside when assembled, so this was a quality refinishing job done by a reasonably knowledgeable pro.. Relieving the muzzle of bluing after refinishing isn't very challenging to achieve correct, in the white configuration, and would be part of a detailed refinishing job. The frame rails are what give away that it's finish isn't original, though. Although it's a challenge to tell from the pic, the lightened areas around the proof characters on the barrel look more to me like a bit of wear that's hitting the high spots as opposed to actual halos, which would be broader, with their edges less defined. Only the crown above the G looks particularly halo-esque to me.

Other clues include the trigger, which appears to have been smoothed enough to affect how the stamped serialization looks, crispness of the stamp numbers seems diminished. The front sight should also be nitre blue. As perky as the blue of the grip screws and axle pins is, I'd expect the front sight to show at least some of the proper blue color--even though it seems to have been filed down a bit--and the pic shows no trace. Also, if the rust bluing were done over a pistol cleaned up by glass bead blasting without buffing, this is the sort of satin finish one would expect.