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In addition to the factory letter, a letter from Rolf Hofer of Kusnacht-Zurich, Switzerland, on November 11, 1961, is included. He states that this revolver
had been in his family for at least fifty years and
was being given to his brother Charles E. Hofer of Winchester, Virginia. Charles Erwin Hofer (1894-1979) was born in Zurich, came through Ellis Island in 1917, and is buried in Winchester, Virginia. The revolver may have been their father’s, identified as Hans Hofer in Charles’s marriage record, given the timeline.
The Colt Model 1877 “Lightning” (.38 Long Colt), “Thunderer” (.41 Colt), and “Rainmaker” (.32 Long Colt) revolvers were Colt’s first double action revolvers. They were originally known as the “Double Action, Self-Cocking Central Fire Revolving Pistol.” They launched the long line of Colt double action revolvers that followed, including the famous Model 1892 revolvers used in the Spanish-American War by Theodore Roosevelt and others to the iconic “Snake Guns” like the Python used by the lead character
Rick Grimes in the hit series The Walking Dead as
well as many real life police officers in the second
half of the 20th century. It was distributor Benjamin Kittredge & Co. that came up with the catching nicknames for the Model 1877s. Around 166,849
were manufactured between 1877 and 1909. While there are visual similarities with the Colt Single Action Army, the revolvers are actually significantly different in their finer details, including their delicate hammer and trigger mechanisms. They competed against
the imported Webley Bulldogs as well as copies of the British design. Soon there were also a variety
of double action revolvers being manufactured by Smith & Wesson and other American manufacturers. Like its larger sibling the Colt Single Action Army, only a small portion of the Model 1877s were factory engraved. Because these revolvers were convenient for carrying and were capable of being fired rapidly, they were widely used in the late 19th century in the West by lawmen, outlaws, and express agents, and many show signs of their use making minty examples very difficult to come by.