In the past, little was definitively known about the Metropolitan Arms Company of New York but is has long been hypothesized by arms historians that the firm was established to take advantage of the massive fire that took place at the Colt Patent Firearms factory in February of 1864. With Colt’s production capacity severely curtailed, there was a perceived opening in the civilian percussion revolver market. It has been further hypothesized that New York gunmaker Orison Blunt was behind the company and produced the earliest guns, which are unmarked, and then relied on the Metropolitan Arms Company to continue production. These long-held beliefs have been proven to be partly correct but more recent scholarship published in Arms Heritage Magazine by American Society of Arms Collectors member Frank Graves reveals more about the real story of the firm.

As previously thought, the impetus for the establishment of the Metropolitan Arms Company was the Colt fire. In fact, the five-person consortium of gunmakers and investors who intended to take immediate advantage of the situation were in business only three weeks after the fire and included the well-known New York gunmakers William J and Samuel R Syms. The pair had previously been in business with Orison Blunt as Blunt & Syms and it is quite likely that Blunt was also involved with the group, although he was not officially listed as “partner”. This is further supported by the fact that the Metropolitan Arms Company took up residence in a building owned by Blunt. The other partners were John S McChesney, John J Serrel and Charles B Hart.

The newly established Metropolitan Arms Company stepped into the void left by the Colt fire by bringing three models to market, all of which were essentially copies of current production Colt products. The primary product was a copy of the Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver. The secondary product was a copy of the Colt Model 1862 Police Revolver, and the final product was a variation on the Model 1851, which was essentially a copy of the Colt Model 1861 Navy Revolver. None of the guns were produced in great numbers and even the Model 1851 type revolver which was produced in the greatest numbers is fairly scarce gun on the collector market today. Between the formation of the company in 1864 and when they went out of business circa 1867 it is estimated that a total of 8,900 revolvers were produced. Of these roughly 6,100 were of the “1851 Navy” pattern, about 2,750 of the “1862 Police” pattern and about 50 were of the extremely rare “1861 Navy” pattern. Interestingly all were .36 caliber guns, and no other calibers were produced. 

The demise of the company has been hypothesized as being the result of the metallic cartridge, which made percussion arms obsolete. This seems quite unlikely as companies like Colt were producing percussion revolvers through 1873 and the introduction of any cartridge revolver was problematic until the expiration of the Rollin White patent for the bored-through cylinder in 1869. More likely the firm failed for a number of reasons. First, while the Colt fire did significant damage to the company they were soon back in full swing producing their popular revolvers and were backed by huge name recognition and a large and effectively used advertising budget. Further, roughly one year after the formation of the Metropolitan Arms Company, the American Civil War ended. This meant that the overall demand for percussion revolvers dropped dramatically with the cancellation of the various Civil War handgun contracts. As the larger companies scrambled to stay in business, firms like Remington readdressed their marketing and production capacity to serving the civilian market into which Metropolitan was trying to make inroads. The rather quick downsizing of the United States Army and the subsequent sale of surplus percussion revolvers meant that a glut of firearms were suddenly on the market as well. All of these factors likely conspired to make the job of selling an essentially unknown brand of percussion revolver, in a very soft market for such items, a nearly impossible job. When the cost of machinery, tooling and set up for the production of the guns is considered against the small number of revolvers actually produced, the partners likely decided to cut their losses and close the company rather than keep beating their collective heads against the wall.

One of the first indications that the firm was having trouble getting market penetration is the fact that the Model 1851 revolvers were produced from serial number 1-63 and then numbering started again at 1164. This bit of subterfuge was likely perpetrated to make the guns appear to have been produced in larger numbers than they were. Similar bits of serial number slights of hand have been documented with some Smith & Wesson models, and more recently has been suggested to have taken place at the New Haven Arms Company to make Henry Rifle production appear greater than it really was. The company used the same strategy in the production of their Model 1862 revolver and those guns started at number 1100, rather than 1.

The 1851 Model Metropolitan Revolver was produced in two variations. The first variation of the revolver was unmarked, and these were numbered from 1-63 and then from 1,164 to about 1,800. It is within the serial number range of these unmarked guns that most of Metropolitan Navy revolvers that were marked and retailed by HE Dimick of St. Louis appear.

The second variation of the revolver introduced the Metropolitan Arms Company markings and also introduced a roll engraved cylinder scene. Colt had long decorated their round cylinder revolvers with a cylinder scene, starting with their Paterson revolvers. Not to be outdone, Metropolitan commissioned famous artist and engraved WL Ormsby who had created the Colt cylinder scenes to produce a decorative roll engraved scene for their revolvers as well. As the Colt Model 1851 “Navy” revolver initially received its nickname from the engraved naval battle scene featuring the Texas Navy fighting the Mexican Navy, it seemed only appropriate that a naval battle scene be featured by Metropolitan a as well. In this case the scene represented the “Battle of New Orleans” in April of 1862, when the Union forces captured that Confederate port city after sailing past the Confederate forts on April 24 and finally took possession of the city on April 29.

Other than the addition of the roll engraved cylinder scene and barrel markings, there was little substantial difference between the 1^st and 2^nd variations of the Metropolitan Navy Model 1851 Revolvers. In fact, there was little difference between the 1851 Navy-type guns produced by Colt and Metropolitan. The Metropolitan 1851 Navy revolvers had 7 ½” octagonal barrels and six, shot .36 caliber round percussion cylinders. The revolvers were single action in operation and used a pivoting link loading lever. The revolver barrels and cylinders were blued, the frames, hammers and loading levers were color casehardened and the backstrap and triggerguard were made of silver-plated brass. One-piece varnished walnut grips completed the guns. As with a Colt, custom features like grips, engraving and finishes were available for additional charges, but such enhanced examples are extremely rare. The differences between the two manufacturer’s guns were minimal, with the most obvious ones being that lack of “lead in” tapered slots on the cylinder stop slots and the lack of safety pins on the rear face of the cylinder. Both of these features were patented by Colt and those patents must have still been active and enforceable when Metropolitan went into business. Other differences are very minor and relate to the grip profile and screw locations, but these are almost irrelevant. To most casual observers, a Metropolitan 1851 Navy and a Colt 3^rd Model 1851 Navy look almost identical, unless the markings or cylinder scene are clearly visible.

The Metropolitan Police Revolver, like its larger brethren was essentially a copy of the Colt revolver it was based upon. Like its inspiration, it was a single action percussion revolver with a five-chambered rebated semi-fluted cylinder and was produced with 4 ½”, 5 ½” and 6 ½” round barrels. The revolver barrels and cylinders were blued, the frames, hammers and loading levers were color casehardened and the backstrap and triggerguard were made of silver-plated brass. One-piece varnished walnut grips completed the guns. Like the Metropolitan Navy, a swinging link loading lever was utilized on the Police model as well, a departure from the Colt design which used a creeping loading lever as was found on the 1860 Army and 1861 Navy. No doubt the use of the swinging link system was because it was simpler and faster to make than machining the more complicated creeping loading lever system. As noted, the serial numbers for these guns started at 1101 to create the illusion that more of the guns had been made than were made. A total of about 2750 were produced with the most sources noting the highest serial number known in the 3850 range. The guns in the 1100 to 1800 serial number range are unmarked, as are the guns in the 1950 to 2400. Some of these “unmarked” guns were subsequently retailer marked by the Union Arms Company. These unmarked guns represent about 42% of the production of the model. The balance of the guns are marked with the conventional Metropolitan Arms Company markings on the barrel, which read:

METROPOLITAN ARMS CO. NEW-YORK

The Metropolitan Arms Police Revolver offered here is in about NEAR FINE condition and is a very nice, crisp example of a one of these fairly scarce revolvers. This example is serial number 2000 and is unmarked as the guns in the range of serial numbers 1950 to 2400 tend to be. Due to the way serial numbering ran with these guns, number “2000” was really number “900” in the production run. There are no external markings other than the numbers on the bottoms of the frame, barrel, triggerguard and butt, and the side of the cylinder. The revolver has a 4 ½” round barrel and matching serial numbers throughout, including the wedge and the grip. As the cylinder is semi-fluted, these revolvers were not roll engraved like the larger “Navy” sized guns were.

As noted, the revolver remains in NEAR FINE condition. All of the markings, which are only the serial numbers, remain clear and fully legible. The barrel retains about 40% of its blued finish, mostly on the barrel web and lower quadrant of the barrel. The top and upper surfaces of the barrel show evenly distributed oxidized rusty freckling and pinprick roughness. This may be able to be removed with a careful cleaning, but I tend to allow the new caretaker of any particular item to decide how best to care for their new acquisition. The cylinder retains about 15% of its blued finish, with most of the bright blue in the flutes. Both the cylinder and the barrel have an evenly oxidized brownish gray patina in the areas where the finish has worn or faded. Both the barrel and the cylinder show the evenly distributed roughly oxidized freckling of poor storage. The frame has a mottled grayish patina with traces of faded blues that show hints of the original color casehardened finish and like the balance of the gun shows even, lightly freckled oxidation on it. The hammer and loading lever have a moderately oxidized grayish-brown patina and show only the most minor hints of the original case coloring. The brass triggerguard shows only the most minute traces of thin silver in protected areas and the balance of it and the backstrap have a medium dull golden patina. The one-piece walnut grip is numbered to the gun as noted and fits well. It shows some light to moderate wear but retains crisp edges and lines and shows only some light handling marks. The grip has some old residue that is also present on part of the backstrap that appears to be some old varnish or some similar coating that apparently dripped onto the gun at some point in time.

The revolver is basically mechanically functional, and the mechanism feels very tight and crisp. Most of the time the revolver times, indexes and locks up as it should. However, the hand or hand spring have some sort of intermittent issue, where sometime the cylinder will slightly over rotate or sometimes not rotate at all. This suggests an issue with the tension of the hand or possibly that the cylinder bolt stop spring is not providing enough tension and drag on the cylinder to keep it from slightly over rotating. The mechanical issues are inconsistent as sometimes the revolver will operate perfectly through ten to twelve rotations and sometimes it will only operate correctly once or twice before it shows a failure to rotate at all or a minor over rotation. More than likely some simple spring work will resolve the issues, if that is important to you.  The bore of the revolver remains in about VERY GOOD condition. The bore is moderately oxidized, retains strong rifling and shows some moderate pitting scattered along its length, with some areas of more serious pitting. 

Overall, this is an attractive and fairly crisp example of a relatively scarce Civil War era revolver. With only about 2,750 of these guns produced, they are certainly not commonly encountered on the collector market, and when they are they tend to be fairly well used and worn. This Metropolitan Police is much better than most examples encountered, has all matching numbers and an attractive appearance as the patina makes the gun appear to have even more original finish than it really does. This would be a fine addition to any Civil War period percussion handgun collection, particularly if your interest is in the less often encountered pocket revolvers of the era. It would also fit in well with an advanced Colt collection as a good example of an unlicensed American copy, produced to take advantage of the popularity of Colt’s designs and the temporary setback at the Colt factory.