Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have what is arguably Marlin’s most successful handgun. This is the Marlin XXX Standard. These small pocket revolvers were produced in 1872 through 1876 with some small changes like cylinder lengthening and flutes along the way. These were of a tip-up design much like the smaller Smith & Wesson pocket revolvers which had not found their top break yet. The Marlin XXX Standard was made to compete with such designs like that Smith & Wesson as well as Colt’s New Line, the Remington Smoot, and Sharps’ No 2 Derringer. It apparently held its own with a grand total of around 25,000 being produced (tweaked models included). Marlin would go on to produce an 1875, 1878, and 1887 revolver but not one of them would be used so thoroughly as the 1872 Marlin XXX Standard.
“Factory engraved scrollwork covers nearly all of the surfaces. The silver plated copper “Lady Pattern” DeGress grips show a relief engraved woman playing a tambourine on the right panel and leaf and scroll on the left side with the patent information in the center. Francis DeGress of Bloomfield, New Jersey, patented his method for molded copper “pistol handles” treated with acid and then gilded with silver in 1874. Examples of his molded grips have been seen on revolvers of multiple manufacturers and are highly sought out by collectors. Marlin expert and author William Brophy wrote, “the DeGress grips are desirable and a pistol fitted with them belongs in every serious Marlin collector’s collection.”
Lot 1061: Marlin Xxx Standard 1872 Revolver with DeGress Patent Grips – Factory Engraved Marlin Xxx Standard 1872 Spur Trigger Pocket Revolver with Desirable DeGress Patent Grips. (n.d.). Rock Island Auction Company. photograph. Retrieved February 10, 2023, from https://www.rockislandauction.com/detail/80/1061.
