About the Piece
In his 1960 acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination, John F. Kennedy called America toward a “New Frontier.” Colt adopted the same name for a new version of its Single Action Army in 1961, then began preparing a specially engraved New Frontier revolver for Kennedy with White House approval. The connection went beyond the model name: this was a presentation firearm designed specifically around the 35th President.
Its most personal details reach back before the presidency. The revolver carries serial number PT109 and a gold PT boat inlay, both referring to the patrol torpedo boat Kennedy commanded during World War II. After PT-109 was rammed and cut in two by a Japanese destroyer in 1943, Kennedy led the surviving crew to safety — an episode that followed him into national politics and became inseparable from his public story. The revolver also carries his JFK monogram, the Presidential Seal, the White House and an inscription identifying him as President of the United States.
Kennedy never received it. The revolver was close to completion when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963, and work stopped. Spectres recreates that surviving presentation Colt, preserving the engraving and Kennedy-specific imagery that made it his. Selective gold gilding retains the visual importance of the original gold details, including the references to PT-109. What was intended as a presidential gift survives instead as an object permanently tied to the moment it was interrupted.
Specifications
What’s Included
- Individually numbered Spectres piece
- Matching numbered Certificate of Authenticity with product specifications
- Custom-designed Spectres presentation box
Every Spectres piece carries the Ghost mint mark.
How is this a coin?
- A coin is defined by its official issuance, not by its physical shape. This piece is formally issued as legal tender by a sovereign issuing authority, with an official denomination and year of issue.
- Money and coinage have also taken unconventional forms throughout history, including ancient Chinese knife- and spade-shaped money. Spectres continues that idea in modern legal tender, where a coin may be round, shaped, functional, sculptural or fully three-dimensional.