My Final Word on this Gun
Ordinarily, I'm not a fan of stainless steel, but in this case I have to make an exception...
Have any of you other gun collectors ever ran across a gun that you loved, in spite of it being something you don't normally collect?
And one more time, ordinarily I'm not a fan of commemorative guns, but in this case I have to make another exception. So it is, with these exceptions, I find myself loving a gun that by all counts I shouldn't. On top of all this, I'm not a fan of gunmakers tampering with the 1911 to make something "new and improved" out of it.
Not owning the complete set and the fact that I've taken this gun to the range, is at least weird and at most a sacrilege. If you zoom in on a photo, you can see the difference in the grip medallion of the Double Diamond. The DD medallion shows only the upper half of the horse and has 150 on it, representing Colt's 150 Year Anniversary. Did you know you can buy factory and after-market medallions and grips on Amazon?
How the Officers Model Came to Be
In 1975, Rock Island Arsenal developed a compact 1911 it called the "General Officer's Model Pistol" for issue to general officers of the US Army and Air Force, but the pistol was unavailable for sale to the general public. The old adage that "people want what they can't have" is so true. The idea of a more compact .45 for concealed carry caught on quickly. Soon, many gun manufacturers were jumping on the band wagon.