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The Deluxe Edition of The Book of Colt Firearms -- 3rd Edition features the same book as the Standard Edition with a tan cover with gold foil, gold gilded edges, an attached gold page marker, a deluxe tan slipcase, and a signature plate with signatures from Colt Historian Kathleen Holt, Colt Archivist Beverly Haynes, Author R.L. Wilson, and Publisher S.P. Fjestad. Only 150 of these deluxe books are available. Limited quantities!

The Book of Colt Firearms, in this fresh, new, Third Edition, improves significantly on the work universally accepted as the finest firearms book ever published.

This carefully scoped, no expense-spared landmark work is a necessary volume for the collector, the researcher, the historian, the curator, the shooter or hunter, the arms dealer, or the interested layman. In one 648-page volume is the fascinating story of the gunmakers and engravers, promoters and industrialists who made and sold the products that have met the needs of the armed forces and peace officers, miners and explorers, cowboys and ranchers, and the good, the bad, and the ugly from the old West - as well as hunters and target shooters, Wild West show performers, and the shooters of the silver screen and TV.

Author R.L. Wilson has delivered to Blue Book Publications, Inc. a completely redone first section, with several superb new color illustrations, a fresh and detailed foreword, and updated acknowledgments. New illustrations have also been added within the body of this work, improving on the original volume and its Second Edition (1993). The engraving section has been expanded to a total of 16 pages. The bibliography has also been updated, as has the historical chronology. Over 50% more color appears in this new edition than in the classic 1971 First Edition - the book that has sold for as much as $3,000 amongst dedicated collectors.

This Third Edition of the Book of Colt Firearms is a complete Colt library in a single volume. In over 1,250,000 words, over 1,250 black & white and 75 color photographs, this mammoth work tells the Colt story from 1832 through the present: a comprehensive study of Colonel Colt and his company, yet tailored for readability, with human interest for the layman.

All Colt revolvers, pistols, longarms, automatic weapons, and countless items of memorabilia are described and reviewed in prodigious detail, in an authoritative text of unsurpassed scope.

This lavish and unprecedented work presents thousands of facts, drawn from the author's years of specialized research, even featuring serial number sequences by year for all percussion and cartridge hand and longarms (except certain periods of some military production). Standard production arms, variations, experimentals, prototypes, and a variety of engraved guns are explored in minute detail. Markings, calibers, barrel lengths, finishes, and a panorama of other features are thoroughly presented in an easily used reference format.

The Colt company's factory records are but one of the many sources for this text. Colt firearms in major museums were researched and recorded. Numerous private collections were thoroughly studied. Catalogs, correspondence, ledgers, and patents from over 175 years were examined.

For this Third Edition, accomplished automotive and firearms photographer Dennis Adler has created a selection of eloquent and beautiful photographs celebrating some of the most spectacular of Colt firearms - many from the distinguished collection of Dr. Joseph A. Murphy, whose arms were the basis for Fine Colts, designed as the companion volume to R.L. Wilson's, The Colt Engraving Book, volumes I and II.