How Uncommon Are Wps And S-wco. Mags?

[TactAdv]

How uncommon, notice I didn't say 'rare', are WW II-era XX mags made by both Worcester Pressed Steel, or Sparks-Withington Cos. .....Or in the case of S-W, XXX mags???

 

I have never seen a XX mag by either , or a XXX mag by S-W???? I understand that the vast majority of the production of these were likely destined for Friendly Nations Program export, but I would have thought at least some would be around? Or with the reimport of many TSMG items, that some would have popped up recently??

 

If I am just unlucky at never having seen one, does anybody have any suggestions as to where to procure some of each??

 

Comments??

 

-TomH

[deerslayer]

I ordered magazines from "what a county" several times and by random chance ended up with a collection of "one of each" of the XX and XXX magazines without too many duplications. Just lucky I guess as they were grease covered and no why to know what I had until I cleaned them. Sold the extra ones for a more than I bought them for (on ebay) so it was fun and profitable to build a collection.

 

I remember some guy selling the very RARE (not) Crosby XXX mags at maybe a $100 each a few times. He had a great write up and convinced a few people that the Crosbys were just not available.

 

The SW CO in the XXX's were the least common though I did end up with a couple. Some people have written that there were two versions of Seymour mags with ever so slightly different markings. I seem to have both types though you could argue that the marking stamp might just be newer or more worn when the magazines were made.

 

In the XX, I managed to get just one each of a WPS and SWCO along with one that had the holes soldered shut (perhaps it was in Africa).

 

In the XX, the auto ordnance ones were the most common and in the XXX the seymour ones were the most common in my random orders.

 

I've got an extra full set of the 4 XXX magazines (auto ordnance, crosby, SWCO and Seymour) that I would consider selling or trading for interesting thompson items.

 

 

[TSMG28]

Tom,

 

Dan did a good job of describing the different mag versions, but I will add my two cents as well.

 

Sparks-Whittington is in the middle of the pack in terms of the number of XX mags produced (1,300,000), though this is broken down between three different variations: one marked SW CO.; one marked SW-CO; and a version of the WWII blank mags. They are not commonly found, though usually a few show up in random purchases like Dan described. A couple I have made a stop in Israel and were parkerized there.

 

S-W produced the smallest total number of XXX mags (2,840,500), but that is approximately equal to A-O Chicago plant production (A-O also produced a little under 1.2M at their Philadephia plant). I have found that both A-O and S-W XXX mags are typically encountered in approximately equal amounts, but far less often than Crosby and Seymour, which are the dominant XXX mags by far.

 

WPS was the second smallest number of XX mags produced (Crosby being the smallest). They are not commonly found but do pop up occasionally. I found one WPS mag among the 880 NOS XX mags I looked at earlier this year. The majority were either Seymour or four of the five versions of A-O.

 

In reply to Dan's comment about Seymour XXX mag variations, I have found three different variations which I believe are not just worn dies. The first variation has periods at the ends of both lines and a comma between SEYMOUR and CONN. The second has the comma, but no periods on either line. The third has no punctuation at all.

 

Hope this helps....

 

Roger

[bug]

TSMG28, Would you by any chance know the location/address of the AO plant in Philly?

 

TIA

 

bug

[deerslayer]

Roger, thanks for your information, your post adds greatly to the font of knowlege of all things thompson and takes my vote for TOP post of the month! I'm going to go back over my collection and see if which Seymours I have (might have to look for another now). I also forgot the blank was a SW mag. When I bought two blank mags from sarco (they ran a small ad two years ago) I got one of each of the blank mags. When I called back to inquire about more of the same, they were all gone. Got any pictures of the three seymour mags?

Dan

[TSMG28]

bug,

 

The Philly plant was actually Mitchell Stamping Company, which also produced some of the later patent date mags (including the infamous 20/24 error date). Mitchell was acquired by United Specialties in Chicago, who made the mags for A-O. I don't have access to AT2 right now, so I don't know if Frank had more information about the location of the plant in that book. I will look and let you know.

 

Dan,

 

Great luck on your purchase from Sarco. I have only the S-W WWII blank version in my collection. Still missing the A-O blank. Not too long ago, it was believed that there was only one blank version of WWII mags. I love this stuff!

 

BTW, S-W also made a Russian Tokarev mag. I understand these are pretty rare, so I do not have one (nor could I probably afford what one would fetch...).

 

See my comments about the Seymour XXXs in your other post.

 

Roger

[John Jr]

I have a WPS with British mod. The holes are filled to keep sand out.

 

I doubt that WW2 box magazines are very rare.

 

Jr