Wow, I'm too late for this thread. I'm selling my M-1.
Mine is a little bit beat up, but still in "good" shape- which is how I received it. I'm pretty sure it has seen actual service. It even has a RACK number painted on the stock; apparently it was once issued, or at least the stock was. I bought it from an old Marine- himself a collector, and I'd love to find out more about its history, but I've lost contact with the guy. When I bought it, it's history wasn't important to me, so I really didn't ask many questions. Years later, I find myself just a tiny bit slower to buy without knowing about where the piece is from and whose hands its been in. Wish I'd asked those questions.
Ah well, anyway...
I'll post a pic of it later. I know this isn't a buy-sell thread, but maybe someone will be able to tell me something about this weapon by looking at the pic.
I've got a book about the M1's, from 1936-1957. It has all the serial numbers in it from all M1s that came out in that time period.
It helped me research mine.
I found mine at a gun store sitting on a rack with 2 others. 1 was fresh from the box, probably out of Greece, cost $1200. The 2nd one was on consignment for $1400. It was old enough that it had a Springfield serial number with 6 digits.
Mine had a Winchester serial number, 7 digits, but found out more about it after, disassembling it and seeing the other serial numbers.
The story of the gun was, some guy had it in his basement for the past 40 plus years, never really using it, and decided to just get rid of it, so he took it to this gun store and sold it to them, to which the gun store just put it out on a rack for a set price. (I'll tell you the price later. I don't want to upset Tony too early.....yet).
Anyway, the serial numbers to look for are.....The main serial number that you see in front of the rear sites. The Receiver, the Bolt, the Trigger Housing, the Hammer, the Op Rod Handle, and the Barrel.
I found on mine that the main serial number "Winchester 1617840", came out of the Winchester factory in April of '45. The Receiver and Bolt also came out of Winchester, same time period. The Op Rod Handle, Hammer, Barrel, and Trigger Housing, came out of Springfield, between '44 and '45. The only "generic" thing on the gun is the safety, which came out of Harvester, sometime after '54. It even still had a post Korean War cleaning kit in the stock.
The only thing missing on it where the "Cartouche", or stamps, on the stock, to show that it had been proof tested for Korea. But after taking it to the Crossroads Gun Show last year, and talking with several people that know about M1s, I was told, that they were probably sanded off at a later date. One guy even showed me, that the stock was from Springfield, just by the cut. So what we determined was, this gun came out at the end of WWII and was placed in service, and stayed in service through the Korean War. Whether it saw action, don't know. It could have been some Soldier's/Marines weapon, that didn't see action, but was posted elsewhere. But I like to think that this baby did indeed, see action and fire off a few rounds "In Anger". Now how it got to that guys basement, is where the trail drys up.
So if you've those serial numbers, or any others that you can find, I'll be happy to look them up.
BTW....the Cost of my M1. The gun store it it marked for $599.00. I said nice gun. Put it back on the rack, came back 5 days later, when they had a sale going on, and talked them down to......
$475.00. Seeing that I was going to be picking up several other things, rounds, gun case, targets, ect.
At the Gun Show, I had one guy offer me
$1600.00 cash for it, right there.
I said NO. I like this gun. >:{
