With Día de los Muertos days away, SK Guns this week has picked the holiday’s best-known face for the second pistol in its Folklore Series. La Catrina is a full-size Colt Government Model chambered in .38 Super. Only 200 will be made, and each carries an engraved edition number.
The St. Augustine, Florida, company opened the series Sept. 18 with the Charro Negro, another .38 Super Government Model built around Mexico’s legend of the Black Horseman, which dealt in omens and midnight rides. La Catrina takes a gentler view of mortality.
She started out as a joke at someone else’s expense. In the early 1910s, Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada etched La Calavera Garbancera, a grinning skull under a fancy hat. He aimed it at Mexicans who disowned their roots and dressed up as Europeans. Decades later, Diego Rivera gave her a full skeleton, a long gown and the name Catrina. He placed her at the center of his 1947 mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in the Alameda Central,” with Posada standing at her side.
Since then, she has become inseparable from Día de los Muertos, observed Nov. 1-2. Families build altars for departed relatives and fill them with marigolds, candles, sugar skulls and favorite foods.
Posada’s original Garbancera rides along the top of the slide, along with a full-length Catrina in a ruffled gown. Calla lilies run in a scroll pattern along the slide flats, selectively plated in 24-karat gold and .999 fine silver, and finish in a balanced scroll at the muzzle end. The flower stands for purity and rebirth, and Rivera painted it again and again. A .999 silver sugar skull sits at the left rear of the slide, and selective shading frames the artwork across the top, sides and frame.
Underneath, the frame, slide, barrel and hardware are polished and finished in Colt Royal Blue. Select areas and controls are done in 24K gold, with selective .999 silver plating throughout. Presentation-grade black Kirinite grips with colored calla lily artwork complete the pistol.
“La Catrina is a celebration of life as much as a reflection on death, and that balance is what we set out to capture on the Colt 1911,” said Simon Khiabani, owner and founder of SK Guns. “From José Guadalupe Posada’s original Calavera Garbancera to the calla lilies and sugar skull that honor Día de los Muertos, every detail pays tribute to a tradition that keeps the memory of loved ones alive. We’re proud to continue the Folklore Series with a piece that is as meaningful as it is beautiful.”
La Catrina is available for pre-order now at an introductory price of $2,900, which SK Guns says will rise to full MSRP after launch. Shipping is expected between February and March 2027. For more information, go to skguns.com.
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