Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 12/23/24 in all areas

  1. Countryboy77, Very few Savage Arms manufactured Thompson submachine guns are what collectors' term: Savage Commercial Thompsons. The first criteria when inspecting a Savage is to look for military markings. The "W" or Woolwich mark inside the Crown immediately indicates S-71043 is a British military procured Thompson gun. Period. No more discussion is necessary. If you look closely at the right receiver nose on the second set of pictures posted, you see the British Broad Arrow mark and the markings from an inspector at the Enfield Depot. See below picture crop. Again, S-71043 has a British military pedigree. It was on a ship headed to Great Britian in early 1941. - "Savage Commercial Thompson" is a collector term coined by long ago machine gun dealer Roger Cox. It is not an official Auto-Ordnance designation. The criteria for a Savage Commercial Thompson are the lack of all military markings and a documented sale to a customer (to date, always a law enforcement organization) in the early 1940s. Some Savage Thompson submachine guns scream "Commercial" but no documentation exists. Usually a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request will provide the documentation necessary to prove a commercial sale to a law enforcement organization. There are those in the Thompson community that use the collector term Commercial on a regular basis without knowing the criteria. There is no difference in the parts used on a Savage Commercial or one sold for military service. Each were pulled from the same production line, perhaps on the same day. The difference is the sale, military or commercial, to the end user. Unfortunately, using the Commercial term based only on parts it is confusing to new members wanting to learn the different variations. I write extensively about the Savage Commercial Thompson in my third book, A Thompson Compendium. It is the authority on the subject. I would guess over the last 15 years, and with the help from many on this forum, I have collected the most complete database of known Savage Commercials in the USA. And my research continues.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...