My oldest brother was born in 1956 and he did a lot of competitive shooting for years. His main competition revolver was a Colt Python. When he was in his twenties, he bought a Colt Python made in his birth year of 1956. They started making Pythons in 1955 and only made 300 in that first year.

So, he landed a low serial number second year Colt Python, six inch barrel, that he shot for near thirty years before he died in 2006 of complications of diabetes.

So, I inherited his 1956 Colt Python serial number 1141. I have shot and collected Pythons since I was a teenager, so, this was a great inheritance!

A couple years after he died, I was looking at older Pythons for sale on Gun Broker, as I had done many times before, and found a guy selling a six inch Colt Python serial number 1139! This was two away from my brother's!! I contacted him and told him what I had and we negotiated a fantastic price on buying that one from him. He was very generous in the sale.

So, now I have a set of early Colt Python six inch blued .357 magnum revolvers almost sequential. It amazes me that these two Pythons were probably in the shop and worked on at the same time almost 70 years ago.

That's my "birth year" firearm story.

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