(...), while doing research on this guy I also found an old NY Times article on Val first bringing these guys over from Italy, has a great photo of him and a table full of Colts.
Hi Valforgettaboutit, congrats on your buy, you really have got yourself a piece of history. Of course it never saw the Old West, but it is a witness of the very first days of replica making.
Have you still got this article you mention, and could you share a copy?
Cheers.
Hey Ringo! Slight hiccup with the article, it is behind a paywall due to still being under copyright by the New York Times. I forget at times having access to these databases at work doesn't mean they're view-able at home. I'm not as up on my copyright restrictions as I used to be, but I'm going to err on the side of caution when it comes to reproducing the article, since its coming from the NYT Archives through a ProQuest Database.
However, I can help somewhat! If you have ProQuest or better yet, your local library should have access to it, I can give you the details that'll make lookup easy.
Its " 'Civil War' Guns for US Buffs Being Made By Yankee In Italy" by Oscar Godbout in the New York Times, May 16 1960. It's not a long article at all, about 8 paragraphs and I'll be honest, Mr. Godbout gets the facts down but its an oddly written column, kinda abruptly ends. But its a fun read none the less.
Hope that helps!