Re The 45ACP Carbine

Last year my wife and I had the great honour to spend a morning at Ralph and Nancy's home at Peoria. It was, for a 30 year Luger collector like me, one of the greatest days of my life.

I saw and handled Lugers I had only read about in Kenyon and Still.I had come halfway round the world to see such things. Ralph was unassuming as he took the time to personally show Jan and me some of his treasures.

If the doubters amoungst you took the time to read R.L. Wilson's second price guide to gun collecting 1999 you will see on page 211 (Colour insert) another great find of the century, a Model 1851 Colt Navy number 14332/. It is the earliest known and undoubtedly the first of Samuel Colt's exquisite gold inlaid commissions and even features a gold inlaid bust of the inventor himself.

It was found here in New Zealand by a close friend of ours, a gun collector and dealer of the same class as Ralph, here in new Zealand, Mr Raymond John Carvell, who found it in a deceased estate. Many so called Colt experts scoffed at it as a fake as it looked too good to be true, but it was the real McCoy and was sold back to the USA for the princely sum of US$550,000.00. So, good on you Ralph, keep up the good work.


Murray and Jan Willis,

Great Barrier Island.

New Zealand.