This revolver was manufactured in 1861 and features beautiful factory entwining scroll engraving with beaded backgrounds and "COLT'S/PATENT" hand inscribed on the left side of the frame, the factory dash marking above or below the lower serial numbers designating the gun for special finishing, a dovetailed blade front sight, the one-line New York barrel address, six-shot cylinder, smooth grip, and the inscription "Presented to S.D. Burchard, by the/Master of vessels, As a token of esteem" cut through the silver plating on the back strap in the location the factory engravers intentionally left blank for later inscriptions. A master of vessels is a mariner licensed to command merchant vessels of any tonnage. There were two prominent men named Samuel Dickson Burchard from New York in 1861, the elder (1812-1891) a Presbyterian minister in New York City who was a prominent Democrat and his son (1851-1882) and a businessman named Samuel D. Burchard (1836-1901) in Missouri and Wisconsin prior to the Civil War and a Union lieutenant in the Missouri militia who later became a state senator in Wisconsin. Given the revolver's date of manufacture, the latter S.D. Burchard seems the more likely candidate. He became a captain and assistant quartermaster on January 24, 1865. The consignor suggested the revolver was presented by Ulysses S. Grant, but the inscription implies it was presented by a mariner, perhaps a captain of a merchant vessel Burchard conducted business with as an assistant quartermaster or one that captained a vessel he traveled on.