Freckling on the bluing on some of these

[1911crazy]

I recently purchased a colt police positive target  22cal revolver and it was advertised as being freckled in some spots.  I guess freckled means little rust spots that hasn't turned into being pitted yet.  On my older swede mausers with the dull bluing i been saving my used soft rags with either simi-chrome polish or fritz polish on them to use on the blued guns.  After using them on stainless and nickel guns when the polish is new i save the used rags/polish to use on the blue finishes to brighten them up.  I got gutsy and tried this on my 1942 colt 22 revolver.   I removed most of the freckling and its still blued.  The value just doubled what i paid for it.   It really cleaned up nicely.  The 1942 colt police positive target 22 revolver goes nicely with my  S&W  model 17 masterpiece target 22 revolver too.  I seem to be getting hooked on the older C&R modern style guns now.

[NRAJOE]

Good to know....thanks for the tip. 

[JonnyReb]

 I guess my colt is a bit worse than yours was, tried a similar method to remove scale on a 1908 Colt pocket .25, but the corrosion was just stopped, the marks are permanent. My question is, on these old colts or any vintage piece, is do you leave the damage and the original finish intact for collectors value or do you have the pistol reblued? Which way hurts or helps value the most?  J

[1911crazy]

It depends on what you want it to look like.  I do reblue some of them but not all of them.  I will touch up my H&R 22cal revolvers.   The higher dollar collectables i leave alone if the polish won't clean them up.

[JonnyReb]

Thanks 1911, I'll adhere to that advice.  J