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On the left Colt #4795. On the right a Richardson. Doug was always looking for a better way. One of his ideas was to deburr/remove the sharp edges from the magazine/drum cutout by machining all the way around it with a corner rounding mill. OK, less hand work, but that's not what original Thompsons look like. On real Thompsons only the slots for the drum have the corners rounded and the rest of the cutout has sharp corners. So I think there is no question the "original" Colt sales sample is built on a Richardson receiver. This is a real black eye for this Lock. Stock. and Barrel place. For all their "expertise" they have no basic knowledge of history and are gullible and/or un-able to distinguish between original Colt guns and this modern day replica. I wonder if they try to fix this (they can't pull the auction because it has bids) by correcting the description, or just ride it out. It will be interesting if some poor soul believes their story and ends up paying $10K or more for what they think is a rare Colt item. Then when he finds out he's been taken the sh*t will hit the fan. I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that... Bob

There was/is at least one Thompson salesman sample, and it’s a live gun; it is not and never was a dummy gun. Colt 9962 was the personal sales sample of EE Richardson. The gun is currently in Form 10 possession of the Virginia War Memorial Foundation. I’ve seen and held it several times, and our own founder, Frank, wrote a very nice article about the gun for SAR back in 2019. Here’s a link to the online edition of the article: https://smallarmsreview.com/e-e-richardson-the-best-thompson-smg-salesman-of-all-time/ Edit: what do the lists say about the history of Colt 8946?

I am confident that is a Doug Richardson receiver. The corner rounding of the entire magazine cutout and drum slots is a distinctive feature. I would guess also a Doug dummy actuator knob. I share the curiosity as to why an allegedly original Colt gun would have WW2 parts. The engraving is not authentic Colt, the blued finish is not Colt. And yes, why would you need this non-gun when there was no restriction on machine guns until 1934? Did they reply to you when you gave them the heads up? Bob

The only thing Colt is the word Colt. Ahead of their time with the ejector.

ONce again, talent on display. Great work!

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