#PanchoVilla

Welcome back to Wheelgun Wednesday!  This week, we are taking a look at the most hotly anticipated and highly valued firearm to hit the auction block in Rock Island Auction Company’s premier auction in December.  Normally, a gold-plated and engraved 1st Generation Colt Single Action Army would be a hot item in its own right.  This particular model, however, has some serious historical value, having been inscribed and gifted to Pancho Villa in 1917.

SK Customs announced a Mexican Revolution-themed series of 1911 pistols called La Revolución with the first gun in the series being the Pancho Villa limited-edition pistol. They’re all going to be chambered in .38 Super, with a high-polished frame, slide, barrel and hardware engraved with selective silver and gold plating on the slide. Pancho Villa (1878-1923) was a Mexican revolutionary and guerilla leader, and one of the most important characters of the Mexican Revolution.

Recently, on a normal day at McClelland Gun Shop in northeast Dallas, Texas, an old revolver was brought in to the store’s gunsmith for a routine hammer repair. Neither the gun’s owner nor the McClelland employees could’ve guessed the amazing piece of history they were about to uncover. It turns out this patinated old wheelgun had likely seen action in the hands of one of the legendary Pancho Villa‘s bandito gang members or Mexican Revolutionary guerrilla fighters in the early 1900s, and the owner didn’t even know it.