The high-end auction houses always have some sort of interesting firearm up for auction – sometimes it’s a rare piece of history, sometimes the gun belonged to a notable figure from the past, and sometimes, it’s a set of diamond-encrusted, gold-plastered Smith & Wesson No. 1 revolvers. Admittedly, that’s extremely rare, but that’s what we see for sale at Rock Island Auction on June 27, 2026.

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Unclear origin story

The Smith & Wesson No. 1 revolver isn’t uncommon in itself. While holding the patent on bored-through cylinders, Smith & Wesson flooded the market with rimfire revolvers that were much quicker to reload than the cap-and-ball competition. The single-action No. 1’s second model came out in 1860 and ran through 1868. Nobody else made anything comparable, and many, many Civil War soldiers carried one or more of these revolvers.

So there’s no mystery about the Smith & Wesson itself; the question is about who did all the fine customization work, and why?

As you can tell from the video below and the photos above, someone went to a lot of work to customize these revolvers, but it’s not really clear who did it, or exactly why. Both revolvers are encrusted with about 25 carats of diamonds, of mixed clarities and with grades of F to KL. The largest diamond is about 0.7 carats. The larger diamonds are old mine cuts, and the smaller diamonds are rose cuts. That hints at their origin in South America and India (where they were uncovered in “old mines,” hence the name).

Rock Island Auction’s listing suggests these handguns might have been customized by Tiffany & Co., who gave other Smith & Wessons a similar treatment. As per their write-up on the auction site:

“Smith & Wesson’s most famous exhibition pieces were made in partnership with Tiffany & Co. of New York and displayed at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago 1893. Tiffany & Co. designed and produced a number of incredible Smith & Wesson revolvers with etching, engraving, silver and gold mounts, and other fine details in the 1880s to early 1900s. Rock Island Auction Co. had the honor and pleasure of cataloging several of these revolvers from the Gerald Klaz Collection in 2020, and many of the others are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Not all of these elaborate arms were meant only for displays, the company also produced some for purchase by the era’s elites, including George Jay Gould. Though unmarked, these extraordinary revolvers may have also been made in partnership with Tiffany & Co. They feature etching on the barrels and cylinders similar to the other known Tiffany Smith & Wessons.”

So, this doesn’t answer the question as to who ordered the revolvers or why, but it does give us a good idea as to who might have been responsible for actually doing the work. Maybe. There were certainly other companies capable of the same treatment, including a couple of outfits in the east who were known for making presentation-grade swords that had a similar diamonds-and-gold-and-engraving finish. Around the time of the Civil War, such items were handed out to Union officers. It’s possible that this was the case with these revolvers.

The cylinders do bear the inscription “PATENTED APRIL 3. 1855. JULY 5. 1859. & DEC 18. 1863,” so that gives us another clue that perhaps they were made late in the American Civil War, perhaps even as fundraisers. As per the Rock Island Auction listing, again:

“A limited number of American firearms in this period were also made as deluxe presentation pieces for foreign dignitaries such as the kings of Sweden and Denmark and Czar Alexander II of Russia while others were made as fundraising items for the Sanitary Fairs held throughout the North to raise funds to support sick and wounded Union soldiers and their families.”

Ultimately, unless some future research tells us more, the buyer will have to be happy knowing they’ve got something incredibly rare and precious, no matter the origin story. RIA says, “Whether they, Tiffany, Ames, or another immensely talented maker was involved, the revolvers truly stand apart from anything else created in America in the era.” It’s hard to argue with that.

Both revolvers are chambered in .22RF and their condition is described as “Exceptionally fine overall with bright gold and glistening diamonds, crisp engraving and markings, bright nitre blue on the extractor rod and small parts, 80% original case colors on the hammer, traces of original blue on the barrel and cylinder, mostly silver-gray patina on the balance, minor oxidation and pitting, distinct etching, and light age and storage related wear. The cylinder occasionally fails to rotate; but the revolver otherwise mechanically functions.” They aren’t in perfect shape, but then, nobody’s buying these to use as a shooter.