Collecting, Value & Where to Buy

Figure 1 — Rare blued Chicago Firearms Co. Protector, matching serial 4937 — the kind of specimen that commands a premium. Source: ima-usa.com.

The Protector occupies a comfortable middle of the antique-arms market: genuinely scarce and instantly recognizable, but with top-end hammer prices measured in low thousands rather than the five and six figures that draw sophisticated fraud. That combination makes it a rewarding piece to collect and a relatively low-risk one to buy — provided you read finish, originality, and matching numbers correctly, and know which auction houses and museums actually handle the design. This volume gathers the real auction results and value ranges from the research, explains what drives value, and points at the specific places to look.

9.1 Auction Results and Asking Prices

These are the concrete data points the research surfaced. Where a figure came through a search-engine excerpt rather than a directly confirmed results page, that is noted — treat the exact numbers as indicative, not gospel.

Table 1 — Auction Results and Asking Prices

Specimen	Source	Result
Jacques Turbiaux “Le Protector,” nickel & blue, 1½”, 10-shot (French 6mm small model), 1880s	LSB Auctions	$1,226¹
Minneapolis Firearms Co., serial 2902, .32, nickel-plated, fine-to-excellent (95–98% original nickel)	Bonhams / Bukowskis, San Francisco, 11 Nov 2014	US $2,574 incl. premium²
Chicago Firearms Co., matching serial, various finish/condition	IMA-USA (dealer asking)	low-hundreds to ~$1,000+, blued matching-serial commands a clear premium³
Chicago Fire Arms Protector, ”+” condition	heldef.ch (Swiss dealer asking)	CHF 1,490 (~$1,640 equivalent)⁴

Several additional Bonhams lots for both Minneapolis-marked and French 6mm centerfire ten-shot Turbiaux guns were located but not individually price-fetched — useful as comparables leads for a follow-up.⁵ Rock Island Auction is described as the most active US house for the design, having sold Minneapolis, Chicago/Ames, and French examples repeatedly, including a “Cased Gold and Pearl Ames Sword Co. Protector” (presentation grade) and an “Exhibition Quality Chicago Fire Arms Co.” example — but RIA’s pages returned HTTP 403 in the research pass, so those are leads to open directly in a browser, not verified results.⁶ No James D. Julia or Morphy Auctions Protector lot was located — Julia’s firearms operation was wound down years ago, and Morphy simply did not surface in this pass; both are gaps to search directly, not evidence that no such sales exist.

9.2 What Drives Value

Standard antique-arms logic applies, with a couple of Protector-specific twists:

Maker. French Turbiaux-marked guns and cased/presentation Ames examples sit at the top; common nickel Chicago/Ames guns in the middle; ordinary Minneapolis guns below that — though condition can scramble this ordering.
Finish. On Chicago/Ames guns specifically, blued is rarer and pricier than nickel — reportedly only about 1,000 of the 3,700–5,400 serial band were blued (Vol 6).³ Nickel was the standard finish, so a genuine blued gun is a real find.
Condition and originality. Original finish percentage and matching serials (frame, turret, cover — the internal-stamped numbers from Vol 4) are the core value drivers. This is precisely why Vol 7 forbids refinishing: a worn-but-honest, matching-numbers gun is worth more than a re-plated one that looks fresher.
Completeness. Correct period case or box, correct-pattern grips and side-plates, and any original accessories all add materially.
Rarity of sub-variant. Cased gold-and-pearl presentation guns, exhibition-quality examples, and the genuinely scarce French-market pieces are the top tier.

Figure 2 — Chicago Firearms Co. Protector, left side — a representative mid-market nickel example. Source: nramuseum.org.

Figure 3 — A Protector, specimen 1988.8.55 — a representative museum example. Source: centerofthewest.org.

9.3 Fakes and Reproductions

The good news for a buyer is that the deceptive-counterfeit risk is low. No evidence of a market in artificially aged fake “originals” passed off as genuine antiques surfaced in the research — likely because the top-end dollar values, while real, are modest enough not to justify sophisticated fraud, unlike a high-value Colt Single Action Army. That said, “absence of evidence is not proof of absence,” so ordinary diligence still applies: read the matching numbers, and be alert to refinished guns sold as original (the more common integrity problem here than outright forgery).

What does exist is a set of openly marketed modern reproductions, which are not deceptive when sold as such and have no antique-firearm legal relevance:

“Hartford Protector Palm Pistol (Model Gun)” — a non-firing display/model-gun replica sold through hobby retailers (RedWolf Airsoft, eHobby Asia), explicitly a replica.⁷
3D-printed educational/display replicas — e.g. a “Protector Palm Pistol” printed replica with reproduced internal parts for assembly-model purposes, non-firing.⁷

Figure 4 — A period "Palm Protector" advertisement — the genuine article these modern replicas imitate. Source: commons.wikimedia.org.

Neither is a real firearm, and neither raises the antique-firearm questions of Vol 8 — but a buyer should recognize them so a model gun is never mistaken for, or misrepresented as, a genuine antique.

9.4 Museum Holdings

Handling and study opportunities exist in several public collections:

Smithsonian National Museum of American History — at least two catalogued Chicago Firearms Co. Protectors (object records nmah_416100 and nmah_416334).⁸
NRA National Firearms Museum — a Chicago Firearms Co. Protector on display in “The American West, 1850–1900” gallery, Case 21, with the museum’s “nearly 13,000 produced in the 1890s” catalog copy.⁹
Cody Firearms Museum (Buffalo Bill Center of the West) — at least one example (accession 1988.8.55), featured in a “Museum Minute” piece — and, per Vol 3 and Vol 8, the source of the conflicting later production-date claim, so a useful but not unimpeachable reference.¹⁰
Royal Armouries (UK) — cited in the Wikipedia bibliography via a 2023 video by curator Jonathan Ferguson, a real and verifiable Royal Armouries curator, though the citation was not independently re-verified in this pass.¹¹
Springfield Armory National Historic Site — searched for, but no holding was confirmed; do not claim a Springfield Armory NHS Protector without further verification.

9.5 Where to Buy — Practical Notes

Given Vol 8, a genuine pre-1899 Protector transfers federally as an antique with no FFL — which is why it turns up freely in generalist and specialist antique-arms auctions (Rock Island most actively, Bonhams regularly for both American and French patterns) and through antique-arms dealers (IMA-USA in the US, heldef.ch in Europe). Buy on matching numbers and original finish, confirm the manufacture date against the serial for both value and legal reasons, verify state-of-residence rules before shipping into a stricter state (Vol 8), and — for a French gun — confirm caliber, ignition, and chamber count against Vol 6 so a French 6mm ten-shot is never bought as, or sold as, an American gun.

9.6 Bibliography

LSB Auctions, “Jacques Turbiaux System Le Protector Palm Squeezed Model, Nickel & Blue 1½” 10-Shot …” — https://lsbauctions.com/jacques-turbiaux-system-le-protector-palm-squeezed-model-nickel-blue-1-%C2%BD-10-shot-rotary-magazine-pistol-mfd-1880s-antique/ (sale figure from a search-engine excerpt, not independently confirmed). ↩
Bonhams (San Francisco, 11 Nov 2014), Minneapolis Firearms Co. Turbiaux-patent palm pistol, serial 2902 — sale figure ($2,574 incl. premium) from a search-engine excerpt; specific lot URL not isolated in this pass. ↩
IMA-USA, blued-finish Chicago Firearms Co. Protector, matching serial 4937 — https://www.ima-usa.com/products/original-u-s-antique-rare-blued-finish-the-protector-palm-pistol-by-chicago-firearms-co-with-matching-serial-4937-only-1-000-made-with-blued-finish (blued scarcity and dealer price range). ↩ ↩²
heldef.ch, “Protector Palm Pistol …” — https://heldef.ch/chicago-fire-arms-protector-1890-a6247/ (current Swiss dealer asking price, CHF 1,490). ↩
Bonhams lot pages, e.g. https://www.bonhams.com/auction/26793/lot/203/ and https://www.bonhams.com/auction/15809/lot/259/ (French 6mm ten-shot patterns; located via search, not price-fetched). ↩
Rock Island Auction — blog https://www.rockislandauction.com/riac-blog/palm-pistols and lot pages including the cased gold-and-pearl Ames and exhibition-quality Chicago examples; HTTP 403 on direct fetch in the research pass — open directly to verify. ↩
Search-engine synthesis on modern non-firing reproductions — Hartford Protector model gun via RedWolf Airsoft / eHobby Asia, and a 3D-printed replica via printed3dmodels.com; located via search, not individually fetched. ↩ ↩²
Smithsonian NMAH object pages nmah_416100 and nmah_416334 — https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_416100 (HTTP 403 on direct fetch in the research pass; located, not content-verified). ↩
NRA National Firearms Museum, “Chicago Firearms Co Protector Palm Pistol” — https://www.nramuseum.org/guns/the-galleries/the-american-west-1850-to-1900/case-21-tin-stars-sixguns-frontier-justice/chicago-firearms-co-protector-palm-pistol.aspx. ↩
Cody Firearms Museum / Buffalo Bill Center of the West, “Museum Minute: The Palm Protector Pistol” — https://centerofthewest.org/2020/03/19/museum-minute-the-palm-protector-pistol/. ↩
Wikipedia, “Protector Palm Pistol” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protector_Palm_Pistol (Royal Armouries / Jonathan Ferguson citation; not independently re-verified this pass). ↩