From 1911-purview

1952 Colt (with beautiful radial checkering) modified by Alton Dinan out of Canaan Connecticut. His specialty shop dealt predominantly with professional handgunners. That’s right, he worked for and did business with his peers, men he fully intended to be in staunch competition with. That’s honor. After a long stint in the Navy during the Second World War, Al moved to Canaan in 1947, where he and his wife Betty set up shop. Betty handled the business, leaving the precision artistry to her very talented husband. Being a nationally ranked shooter himself, Al not only knew all the top guys of that time, but he knew exactly what they needed to win. As paying customers, he gave them the same accuracy, tuning, and ammunition data that he himself used. The peak of his shooting career came in 1964 when he won the National Civilian Pistol Championship at Camp Perry. I imagine him beating a guy who may have even used this very gun against him. Prior to this he had won so many state and regional matches that it would be impossible to list them all. Locally, shooters were in absolute awe of him, and as such, he had very little competition. An excellent machinist, Al could make anything in his shop, from a singular part to a complete firearm. In the evening of March 26, 1977, Al pulled out onto Route 7 in his Jeep and was struck by a car going in the opposite direction. He died a couple of hours later. He contributed frequently to The American Rifleman and many other firearm publications of the time. His 1911s are easy to spot because they are usually adorned with “two hole” front sight—designed so that anyone looking down the line at a match would easily know who was shooting his guns. Hand crafted grips (made by an unknown maker circa 1942) capture the essence of this Colt. This gun was likely hauled from town to town, inside a clumsy wood box, in the back of a 1962 Chrysler Imperial…so yea, she wears her soul on her patina. These guns have stories.