OK; this ping-ponging thread has begun to annoy me, so I must make the following observations"
Jim Hall's breathtaking A-1 Special has to be seen in hand to be truly appreciated; the only thing as good as the gun in hand is the wonderfully moving presentation Jim gave on the gun's history at one of our PGCA Annual Meetings long past.
The monotonous struggle in this thread for monikers selected for the faked-up gun supposedly mimicing the original gun intended for Nicholas has given me new impetus to select my own: I will henceforth refer to this recreation as the "CzaRepro."
The CzaRepro is a strange and mesmerizing gun; the feeling one gets examining it is not unlike trying on the London Fog raincoat of the reporter who broke the Lindberg kidnapping case (the faces of the eagles on the custom case gave me nightmares for days); Examining the real gun afterwards is understandably anticlimactic and underwhelming;
You can be absolutely sure that the estimated 80,000 people who viewed the gun at the NRA convention had positively no idea what all the 'hoopla' was about either, only that they were "knee deep in it."
If the CzaRepro surfaces again at the NRA Convention in Houston, there should be a simple voluntary questionnaire sheet the observers can fill out and drop in a ballot box with such questions as, "Does this look like the real Czar/Tsar 's gun to you?" If not, would you say that it appears (a) more ornate? (b) less ornate? " Also, "If you saw this gun come up at auction, how high would you bid up on it? (a) Very high (b) High (c) Medium (d) Low (e) Very low, or (f) Would not bid at all?"
Lastly and even more intriguing than this Maltese-Falconesque conundrum (is it possible that Peter Johnson actually saw the REAL one and described it accurately in his book, from whence it was faithfully 'reproed'???), look closely at the last May NRA Convention photo - the man standing on the extreme left examing the CzaRepro smacks mightily of a former Czar/Tsar himself - or is it only an apparition, like the second gunman on the grassy knoll??
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