What is the deal with this magazine?

[ricedw]

What is the deal with this magazine? Why is it selling for so much?
link to ebay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7198647264&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%3A80%2F%2Fsearch%2Fsearch.dll%3Ffrom%3DR40%26satitle%3D7198647264%26 fvi%3D1)

[BilltheCat]

sucker is born every minute?
The mother of all fools is forever pregnant? (thanks to a GT member for this one!)

[Jim Watson]

It is or is made up to look like a "keyhole" magazine for early 1911 Colts. To a collector it is a type II as used in 1912 and 1913 only. Worth a good deal if authentic, even with the crack.

[Geeorge]

It very well may be a real key hole mag ,but the two tone finish is wrong as it came after this design;)

[p01ic3m4n]

Originally posted by ricedw
What is the deal with this magazine? Why is it selling for so much?

i think i heard that exact same line in a seinfeld episode. :)

[wyliearms]

Its a repro or modified original and they are at least 1 out of the below 10 people that are going to be pissed when they take it to the next antique road show and it gets BUSTED!

History: 10 bids (US $9.99 starting bid)

The originals were a parkerized type finished, black, steel bodied magazine weren't they? I'm not familiar with polished stainless being avaiable in 1913 or even considered.

[Jim Watson]

Parkerizing did not come into use until the very end of WW I.

That doesn't look like stainless to me.

Now Cletus says it is a fake because a keyhole magazine would not have the two tone effect caused by the spring tempered upper end not taking the blue like the lower section. I dunno, the example I found at a collectors' site was twotone, but I am not up to speed or interested in such details.

[Geeorge]

Originally posted by Jim Watson
Parkerizing did not come into use until the very end of WW I.

That doesn't look like stainless to me.

Now Cletus says it is a fake because a keyhole magazine would not have the two tone effect caused by the spring tempered upper end not taking the blue like the lower section. I dunno, the example I found at a collectors' site was twotone, but I am not up to speed or interested in such details.


I'm not saying it's fake ,just that it has been refinished incorrectly.

A good tig welder could fix that crack so that you would never know it, and if my memory serves me correctly a dull blue finish would be right for that particular mag;)