Help identifying gun

[eka]

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii255/donquijote_photos/Shooting%20Photos/Dscn0001.jpg

http://i266.photobucket.com/albums/ii255/donquijote_photos/Shooting%20Photos/Dscn0004.jpg

A friend of mine has this little .22 cal. revolver. Anyone have any background they could share. He came to me with it and I don't have a clue. It doesn't have any numbers or lettering.

Thanks,

Keith

ps. I tried to edit these pics in photobucket so you wouldn't have to scroll all over, but I couldn't get the job done. Sorry.

[mold maker]

It certainly looks like a product of the "Whitneyville Armory Ct USA". Circa 1870s
I've seen a 32 cal. rim fire that's just a larger cylinder version of yours.
Thats the same folks that produced the Eli Whitney Cotton Gen

[Kraschenbirn]

All the pics of Whitneyville examples that I've found in my library have the cylinder lock slots at the rear of the cylinder. However, the Colt "New Line" have theirs at the front. There's an example in Boothroyd's "The Handgun" that appears very similar except for the hammer shape but the Colt "Old Line" (open top frame) pocket revolvers illustrated in Haven & Belden's "History of the Colt Revolver" have the same hammer profile as yours. Also, both Colt models have knurled base pins while the Whitneyville's are smooth.

Perhaps a Colt "New Line" with an "Old Line" hammer? Or, as yours is unmarked, a knock-off of the Colt by an unknown maker?

Bill

[KCSO]

Looks like a Manhattan or some such, try Arms of the world 1911, they have pages of these knock off's.

[wiljen]

Colt New line have their recesses at the rear of the cylinder, a disk on the left side plate with a screw through the center, and the serial should be on the butt along with a rollmark down the top of the barrel. The head on the cylinder pin on the colts was bullet shaped too, rather than blunt as shown in the pics. I suspect one of the knockoffs.

[MtGun44]

Any markings at all?

Bill

[eka]

Bill, I don't see any markings on it at all. I'm sure it's a knockoff as the others have mentioned. Patents and trademarks didn't stand for much in the mid to late 1800's. I have a double barreled muzzleloading shotgun that has Parker on it. It was a lower end general store type knockoff of the original Parker Bros. shotguns. Never the less it still shoots good and has managed to hang around now for well over a hundred years.

Keith