“This is quite simply the finest production pistol available anywhere, at any price.”  – email blast for the $7195 (base) Ed Brown Signature Edition 1911.

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49 COMMENTS

  1. For $7200 opening bid, it better get all “A” zone hits without me having to aim it, achieve 0.2 second mag changes at will, and leap out of its holster on my mental command. Sheesh!

  2. A relative has a couple (yes two!) of his Special Forces 5″. Great pistols, but I can’t see how $5000 worth of engraving makes it any better. If anything, you’ll shoot the thing less and it will never see an holster. Guess that’s the point.

    RF – when I buy mine in 2-4 years, I plan on letting TTAG test it out 🙂

  3. $40 cigars used to be the way to live the good life, if you couldn’t afford NOT to ask the price. Seven thousand still serves the purpose. The smokes just a little harsher, but it’s still cheaper than a $300G Ferrari Fiorano or a $3 million house.

    • Well I know when I’m driving my Farrari to my beach villa on the Med. I carry this in a custom sharkskin holster. The only part that sucks is when I wake up and they are all gone.

  4. Wow, CNC engraving, what craftsmanship. Why innovate when you can just add some ornamentation to an existing product. I just can’t believe there is a market for it.

  5. Or you can just buy a SIG 1911 and spend the leftover cash on a week’s worth of caviar, champagne and hookers.

    • Or instead of the caviar pay someone to engrave that Sig just like this and still have the hookers and champagne.

      • There is no SIG just like this, SIG doesn’t make a standard 1911. The tradition is part of the appeal of a 1911. Traditional design, and a well-known name like Ed Brown. People will already pay $4-5k for those two things alone. The engraving is just a little something extra.

        And I don’t know if you’ve priced caviar, champagne, and hookers lately gents, but if you ever do, you might decide that this is a pretty decent bargain. The high life ain’t as cheap as it used to be.

        Compare this gun to the price of a Rolex. Never mind a higher-end watch. And all that does is tell time.

    • The very best courtesans charge more than that for a weekend. In looking up courtesan on wiki, I came across this:
      “A male figure comparable to the courtesan was the Italian cicisbeo, the French chevalier servant, the Spanish cortejo or estrecho. It actually seems that the figure of the chevalier servant (French, lit. serving cavalier, lady’s escort) of a married lady was quite common in Europe up to the 18th century.[4]”

      I wonder if that is where the name Chevrolet originated from; a married lady’s servant? If so that is one good joke.

    • I’ve always agreed with your priorities Ralph. Where was your wisdom 12 years ago when I needed it most?

  6. “This is quite simply the finest production pistol available anywhere, at any price.”

    I have a number of 1911’s that would beg to differ.

  9. I don’t read car sites, so I don’t know: are there people who always reply to pictures of sports cars with “My ’98 Corolla gets me to the grocery store just fine!”? If you don’t see the appeal, it’s not for you. I don’t see the appeal, but it’s not for me. That’s fine. Not everything has to be for me. I’m guessing Ed Brown doesn’t care, and that he’ll have plenty of takers even after I bow out of the bidding.

  10. I personally love the look of engraved firearms. If money were no object, hell, I’d have a bunch. There are thousands of things higher up in my “must have” list though.

    • A lot of engraving is mechanically done. I’d call machine engraving “industrial artware.” It’s nice. Just nice. Hand engraving, on the other hand, done one gun at a time, is pure art.

  11. I bet I could get my Springfield Milspec engraved too. Would that make it worth a couple of thousand? This gun you put in your glass case, not one that you actually shoot.

  13. Feature this news release on TTASRGO: The Truth About Super Rich Gun Owners.
    I’m not in that special class. I don’t even know anyone remotely named Rothschild.
    This is the sort of gun that Pippa’s friend — the irresponsible gun owner in Paris in the convertible — would buy.

  14. Is Ed Brown now the Ed Hardy of the gun world? Everything with his name on it costs 10x as much?

  17. There’s an entire market of firearms of which the majority of readers of TTAG are obviously unaware.

    • Which would those be? Ones that are not for shooting? That covers 75% (wild-ass guess) of all guns sold. Or the “instant collectible” class of guns?

      • The bespoke market, where people who know what they want and don’t want anything else can and do commission a gun maker to make exactly what they want.

        Ed Brown is hardly the only pistol smith out there doing this type of work. I’d wager that most TTAG readers don’t know about the American Pistolsmiths Guild, or the American Custom Gunmakers Guild, etc. Go search out their web sites and see how many gun makers there are doing this level of work. It’s more than a couple here and there.

        As for the cost: The price of American custom guns is actually low (IMO) for quality of work done. European bespoke houses charge much more for similar work. Look at outfits like Holland & Holland, or Hartmann und Weiss for examples of bespoke rifles that go for $50K and up. I’ve handled H&H guns and I’m not as impressed with their execution as I should be for a $100K gun. I think on a $100K H&H side-by-side, $80K of the price is the name. I’d rather own a Winchester 21.

        Some of these guns are never shot, that is true, but many (most, actually) are. The people who buy them, as I said, know what they want and they’re willing to pay someone to make exactly what they want. Most people don’t own multiple guns of this sort – but most of the people who do own guns of this sort are older, have been around the block a few times, have learned quite a bit about fine firearms along the way and instead of buying a red sports car with a pneumatic blonde to fill the passenger seat, they buy a bespoke firearm. Life is a series of choices, and these people (usually older gentlemen) decided to scrimp and save when they were younger, and now that they’re older, they’re going to enjoy the rewards of prudent financial planning.

        BTW, this market isn’t new. If you look back at the catalogs of Winchester, S&W, Colt in the 19th century, you will see that they offered bespoke guns as well. If you look at the prices they charged then, and adjust those numbers for monetary inflation between then and now, the prices are about the same. The numbers are just different, that’s all.

        Some guys order a bespoke rifle for their once-in-a-lifetime hunt in Africa or Alaska, others who have retired after successful business careers decide that life is too short to hunt with an ugly-assed Remington 700 or carry a Glock.

        As many pistol and rifle smiths as there are, there are even more customers in the bespoke shotgun market. Want to see what goes on there? Here ya go:

        http://www.connecticutshotgun.com/

        • Wow. Here I am shooting 1/2 MOA or better from my ugly-assed Remington 700 LTR .308, and carrying my Glock 27 and Glock 35 which are both relentlessly reliable. And they all have nicks and dings from actual use from holsters or in the field.

          I’ll admit that I have some envy for a Kimber .45, or an Ed Brown rifle, but I manage…

          (I’ll probably get the Kimber in 2013, and the Ed Brown will never get the wife’s approval, but the Marlin XLR .45-70 with the Leupold is a lovely gun)

  18. I see a very beautiful gun there, but quite out of my reach. I love engraved firearms, and have handled a few from the 1800’s. There is something special about a gun like this, it is a carefully made purchase, not a Walmart impulse buy and as such usually has or will develop some history as it gets passed down through a family. I had a great-uncle that owned his dad’s L. C. Smith side by side 12 ga. shotgun that was lightly engraved. It was his most prized possession. His dad had hunted with it, as did he, so it showed some wear, but not a speck of rust or dirt. Sadly he had no children, so I don’t know where that fine old gun went. I don’t know if I totally agree with Mr. Brown’s accessment that his is the finest pistol in the world, but it is worthy of being on the top 10 list for quality and cosmetics.

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