This is an extremely rare example of an original Colt Government Model semi-automatic pistol that was manufactured/sold under a Russian contract circa mid to late 1916. During the 1915-1917 time frame, the Russian Army was severely short of arms and ammunition and was forced to purchase thousands of weapons from abroad based on credits that the Russian Government had negotiated with Great Britain. These credits were supported by the gold reserves held in Russia; however, all the contracts had to be placed with Great Britain on behalf of Russia. Consequently, Russia was able to purchase a considerable number of weapons with one of them being these Colt pistols. The Colt/Russian contract consisted of approximately 51,000 standard Colt Government Model 1911 commercial pistols. They did not have any specific Russian acceptance proofs; however, the left side of the frame were roll marked in Cyrillic letters "ANGL. ZAKAZY", which roughly translate to "English Orders". These are extremely rare pistols, with almost no examples ever reimported back into this country. These pistols fall into the serial number range of C23000 to C89000, with this example being mid-way in the production run. The left side of the slide has the standard Colt pre-war two-line, two-block factory markings with the Rampant Colt behind the rear of the slide serrations. The right side of the slide is marked "COLT AUTOMATIC/CALIBRE 45". The left side of the frame is marked with the above noted correct Russian Cyrillic markings with the right side marked "GOVERNMENT MODEL/C 51429". The barrel is a blued version, with "N/P" marked on the underside in front of the barrel lug. It also has the early style (1914 pattern) checkered, thick thumb safety, a serrated slide stop release, Colt wide-spur checkered hammer, flat smooth mainspring housing, along with a set of checkered walnut grips. It comes with an original Colt half-tone blued magazine with a lanyard loop on the base plate and a Finnish Air Force attributed, unmarked, brown leather holster.

Very fine with 75% plus of the original blued finish, edge and high spot wear, and blue loss on the front ends of the slide, front grip strap, main spring housing and grip safety. The markings are clear and sharp. The walnut grips are in very fine condition with nice distinct original checkering overall, slight wear across the tops of the checkered diamonds, and a couple light pressure dents. The holster is also in fine condition with tight stitching.