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“When someone pays $300,000 for a firearm, its history,” noted
collector Frank E. Bivens Jr. remarked in 1973 after an ornate
flintlock from the collection of King Louis XIII of France went
up for auction. The $300,000 winning bid by the New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art set a new record for the fine arms field
at the time and helped establish the genre as an elite collecting class.
Last August, another pinnacle piece from King Louis XIII’s
Cabinet d’Armes made headlines in the auction world when it
passed the podium at Rock Island Auction Company. The French
monarch’s ornate presentation sporting arm realized $951,750
after auction fees, tax, and all associated costs, firmly setting
a new world record for a wheellock firearm sold at auction.
Though six and seven-digit collectibles are nothing new, the
number of genres reaching such lofty heights has been ever
increasing. A Patek Philippe Grand Complications “Sky Moon
Tourbillon” set a new online auction pinnacle for luxury wrist
watches last March with $5.8 million, while Michael Jordan’s
1998 NBA Finals Air Jordan XIIIs sneakers brought in a cool
$2.2 million the following month, a record in the field. The high
watermark for a single stamp was broken in November as a rare
“Inverted Jenny” hammered for $2 million, and less than three
years ago a six-liter bottle of The Setting Wines 2019 Glass Slipper
Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon attained $1 million at a charity
auction, the first bottle of wine to reach the seven-figure milestone.
While not as widely recognized compared to the collectible classes
mentioned above, the fine arms sector has been garnering prices
that rival and sometimes surpass its more celebrated counterparts,
demonstrated by the 2021 sale of the Colt used to shoot Billy the Kid
for $6.03 million. The iconic Old West revolver is one of numerous
investment-grade firearms to earn seven figures over the last 10
years, and the frequency of such sales has been steadily on the rise.
In the last decade, nine of the 13 single and paired firearm lots to
surpass the million dollar mark on the auction block have gaveled here
at Rock Island Auction Company, with six of these sales achieved in
the last five years alone. That prestigious list includes the flintlock
pistols of Alexander Hamilton, the Colt revolver of U.S. President
Theodore Roosevelt, and a historic pair of Remingtons owned by
General Ulysses S. Grant that earned $5.17 million in May of 2022.
Though the arms collecting market has been building momentum
for many years, its recent growth has been unparalleled. One
example dates back to May of 2016, when Rock Island Auction
Company set a then-record for the most expensive single firearm
sold at auction with a historic Winchester Model 1886 rifle that
realized $1.27 million. Two years later, we eclipsed our own
record with a cased Colt Walker known as “The Danish Sea
Captain” that took home $1.84 million. Thanks to factors like
the global reach offered by digital bidding platforms, the greater
availability of prestigious arms collections, and a burgeoning
contingent of buyers seeking portfolio diversification, the million-
dollar firearm had gone from rare outlier to a status enjoyed
by an ever-expanding pantheon of top-tier investment pieces.
The increased competition to own these giants in the genre can
be illustrated by examples like “The Millikin Dragoon,” a cased
percussion Colt in immaculate condition. The prized revolver earned
$805,000 in 2011 with Heritage Auctions, only to more than double
that sum eight years later with Rock Island Auction Company,
breaking into seven-digit territory with an impressive $1.67 million.
Elevated values are evident across every sector of the arms collecting
landscape, including significant pop culture items. In August of
2022, Rock Island Auction Company earned the Guinness World
Records title for the most expensive prop gun ever auctioned with
the $1.06 million sale of Han Solo’s blaster from the original Star
Wars film. The record had already changed hands twice the previous
year, with John Wayne’s revolver selling for $517,000 in October and
Captain Kirk’s phaser rifle earning $615,000 the following month.
Million Dollar
Dreams: An
Investment Class
Comes of Age
Well-Documented and Historic Exceptional
Presentation Cased Deluxe Factory Engraved
Colt Model 1862 Police Percussion Revolver with
Extremely Rare Pearl Grips and Presentation
Inscription to Professor J.D. Butler from Colt's
Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co.
LOT 3214