Wednesday, September 27, 2006

THIS I wasn't expecting

Couple of weeks ago SOG advertised they were getting in some M1 Carbine receivers at a pretty good price, so I called & asked some questions and ordered one. It came in yesterday.

Mostly it's what I did expect. They were advertised as 'very good' condition, and it is; the only marks other than to the finish are a couple of small dings on one edge of the rear sight dovetail. What was the surprise was the serial number; 9000(correction, my eyes are crossed or something; 90k series) series. Which makes it very early production. I'm not sure how early, I can't find a list anywhere indicating what serial numbers were produced in what year, but considering there were about 6.5 million of them produced in total, it's very early. Which is really cool.

It's the first time I've gotten hold of something like this, where I wondered whether to build it up or keep the thing because of possible collector value. I think I will go ahead and build it, and if I can do it without spending a fortune I'll try to use Inland parts as much as possible; only seems right for something like this.

Additional: I just talked to a guy locally who's something of a carbine expert. He advised me that unless I had an open line of credit, putting it together as a 'correct' Inland isn't a good idea and recited various prices to me. Yikes! Mixed parts it'll be.

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