President Trump's Colt 1911 Pistol: A .45 for 45
The story of my chance encounters with President Donald J. Trump's Colt 1911
In September 2017, I was in Connecticut touring the Colt factory. When we got to the Custom Shop, I happened to be standing next to one of the engravers who had a 1911 frame in his vise. He was hard at work tapping gold wire into a channel he had cut on the right side of the gun just above the trigger guard.
Knowing that work done in the Custom Shop is expensive even before you add in the cost of the gold, I knew it must be a special gun and I said as much to the engraver.
“You have no idea,” he said quietly, which immediately grabbed my attention. He spun his vise around so that I could see the inside of the back of the grip frame, which is where the serial number is first applied to a Colt 1911.
As I looked closely at the small characters, I saw “DJT045.”
I’ll admit, it took me a couple seconds to put it together. When I did, my eyes grew wide and my eyebrows went up as I looked over at the engraver. Without saying anything, he smiled and nodded.
I immediately understood that this wasn’t a commemorative gun, like so many that have been made and offered with Trump’s name on them. No, this was different. It was being made for the president himself. This was to become President Trump's own Colt 1911 pistol.
Never one to be shy and recognizing the historic significance of what was in front of me, I asked if I could take a picture.
“Only if you make sure to keep the serial number out of it, and be quick about it.”
He hadn’t yet finished talking and my camera app was already open and ready. I snapped one quick photo of the frame mounted upside down in the vise, a piece of gold wire hanging out of the cut channel.
Shortly after, we left the Custom Shop and I never gave much more thought about the gun. I assumed that it was something special that Colt was making as a presentation for President Trump on behalf of the company. It was neat to see it as a work in progress and I hoped that one day I might see it in its completed form in the future Donald J. Trump Presidential Library & Museum - assuming, of course, that the president did not choose to purchase the gift and bypass its donation to the National Archives.
Almost a year later, in July 2018, I was surprised to see the completed gun on a table at my job. As it turned out, the gun wasn’t being made on behalf of Colt. It had actually been commissioned by the NRA, and it had come to the museum in Fairfax for safekeeping until it came time to make the presentation.
The pistol is absolutely stunning. The blueing is so deep that it is almost black, and it looks like you could just fall into it. It’s got full coverage engraving accented by gold wire inlay around the edges, plus the presidential seal engraved and inlaid in 3D in gold on the right side of the slide along with the Colt name. The opposite side of the slide says POTUS 45 inlaid in gold along with the Rampant Colt logo engraved and inlaid in 3D in gold.
On the right side of the frame, above the trigger guard and a border of inlaid gold was the gun’s visible serial number, engraved and inlaid in gold: DJT045.
As dumb luck would have it, that’s the exact spot on the gun that I had photographed covertly almost a year prior. I was speechless.
Just a few months later, in October 2018, I left the museum to pursue the truest form of the American dream: self-employment. At that time, the presentation of the gun had not been made.
Of course, it wasn’t many months later when the wheels started to come off of the NRA. To this day, I don’t know if the gun ever made its way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, or if it’s still sitting on a table in Fairfax. All of my connections at the museum are long gone. Indeed, almost everyone I knew at the NRA in general is gone, so there’s no chance of finding out that way.
There’s only one person who I can think of that might remember seeing such a beautiful gun. Perhaps Donald Trump, Jr. knows?
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