I was a kid in the heyday of the TV Westerns. I 'm actually old enough to remember walking to the Movie Theater with my Dad on Saturdays to watch the Hopalong Cassidy movies. I received a cowboy hat for my 3rd birthday, which legend has it, did not leave my head for three days and nights.
Hoppy, The Cisco Kid, The Lone Ranger and Tonto, Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, Wild Bill Hickok, Wyatt Earp, The Lawman, Bat Masterson, Yancey Derringer, Cheyenne, The Rebel, Wanted Dead or Alive, Have Gun Will Travel.... My brain was soaked, and marinated in Westerns.
When I was about five my Mom took me downtown, and I picked out my first cap gun. It was modeled after the 1851 Navy, with reddish brown plastic grips. It was more substantial than a run of the mill cap gun, and the loading lever actually worked. Operating the lever popped up the guns cap chamber for reloading. I took great care of that gun, and would have it still if it had not been collateral damage in the "Great Toy Chest Massacre" of 1967.
Needless to say when it came to a chance to buy my first Colt clone, it was an 1851 Navy.
Love of The Old West and the guns of that era are embedded deep in my being.