I saw a High Standard Crusader once at a Gun Show. It had the knight with sword inlayed into the rather too bulky rear of the frame.
Interesting gun. High Standard saw a potential market in .44 Magnum double actions after the movie Dirty Harry came out and Smith and Wesson were backordered for a year or more. Management got hold of a Model 29, got all their engineers together in a meeting, and asked them “What improvements would you like to see in this gun?”
They did indeed come up with improvements, making a stouter gun than the 29. Unfortunately, soon after production started, Smith and Wesson caught up on its backlog, lots of sore-handed former Magnum enthusiasts were dumping their 29s, the brokers who’d bought up all the 29s they could afford in order to to sell “Now!” to the impatient types at a hefty premium were sitting on a ton of unsold inventory, and the Crusader was just a minor starting player in a totally saturated market. High Standard ceased manufacture after just a couple months. Kind of a shame, but a sound business decision.
The owner of course knew what he had and wanted beaucoups moola for his treasure. I’ve never seen another one.
I’ve never seen any “Unequal” anywhere either. Whoever came up with that lame name should have been fired. The word “unequal” implies inequality on the inferior, not the superior side.
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