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Hey the other day one of our neighbors came in w/his son and was, as usual, admiring our assortment of firearms. While looking over some of our black powder pistols, he settled in on a Remington 1858 Army black powder revolver...
After handling this modern day replica manufactured by F. Llipietta in Italy, This dark blue beauty seemed to belong to him - almost.
"I got one of these.", he exclaimed. "I got an original from the gold rush days. Wanna see it?"
"Sure!", I said. Not wanting to miss out on such an opportunity. After a few minutes he and his son meandered on out through the door and then I began to show some other customers around.
After about, oh, say a half hour or so, he comes strutting back in with an old box. He set the box on the counter and said, "Go ahead. Open it up." And I did... 
Here we are! The old and the new, the borrowed and the blue (that's a pundit  ).
In the foreground we have the new F. Llipietta distributed by EMF corporation, while the beauty in the background is an original Remington, mail-ordered by a California merchant who served the mining community during the Gold Rush era.
The gentleman who originally owned this gun appears to have carried it with him everywhere he went, including his daily routes in his buckboard, judging by the wear on his pistol grips. 
He kept the pistol, wearing it daily for over 20 years, well into the era when Cartridge revolvers had effectively supplanted these bold defenders in black powder. Eventually, however, he relented and retired his sidearm, and the rest, as they say, is um..... 
Well back to modern day China, right? Hey we were lucky to have these two kissing cousins in the same place at the same time, and we wanted to share that special moment with you too. 
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