1928 Lower Serial Number

[Grumpy]

It's Me Again,

 

Ok, the lower I got in my IMA parts set has something special about it. Someone did a poor job of grinding away the A.O. serial number ( number gone but can still see a fait AO ). A new number was stamped. That number appears to be 308081. Then a line was struck though the number. Above it another new number was stamped, 317559. Same stamp set was used for both "NEW" numbers.

Was this a attempt to keep the receiver's and lower's number matching during a rebuild? What do you guys think?

 

Take care,

Bill

[Ron Mills]

Yo Bill:

I think you have a point there with the purported number-matching attempt during a rebuild. I've never seen a "line-through" followed by a new number. I have an IMA dummy M1, and my lower is cleanly marked 33XXX (I don't have the gun near me right now, thus the "XXX"). Interesting, your variation. I do think it was an attempt to match numbers between upper + lower. Good job spotting the AO ahead of the number!

[TSMG28]

Bill,

 

Your lower may have gone through the "old" deactivation procedure in the U.K. at some time in its life. When I was in Britain recently and looking at deac'd Thompsons, I noticed that some of the lowers had been renumbered. Apparently the reason for this was to make certain it matched the number on the upper since the complete deactivated weapon was treated as a unit and needed to have matching numbers. BTW, the "new"/current deactivation procedures in Britain essentially destroy the lower receiver, so yours is definitely not a recent one.

 

I don't know if your lower went through this or not, but it may be another possible explanation. We all know that many Thompsons had lowers switched as part of repair/rebuild, hence the original mismatch.

 

Congtrats on what sounds like a really nice parts set.

 

Roger

[Grumpy]

Thanks guys!

 

Should make a nice display/dummy gun without any refinishing.

 

Bill