Jim, you must not be paying attention. You offer only a thought of what you think you heard. The recent historian for Colt says the 1878s and the 1883s were made in Hartford. The book Joe Wood points out says the same. The 1884 Colt catalog says similar. Where is your Factory proof ? Let's see it and we will all learn something. Seriously, do you think your Factory historian was thinking of a 1878 pistol ?