A sad story and some serial numbers

I

ilikeoldguns

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Can we track down guns by their serials?

See I have this sad story to tell, true one as it happens.

For reasons I won't get into; many years ago, while my grandfather was very sick, dying in fact; my grandmother, in order to get them out of her house, sold his two WWII Bringback handguns. Got robbed frankly. There were some mitigating circumstannces in play, but it was a move that has never sat well with me and my dad.

He had an american M1911A1 with plastic grips with a pinup picture inside and a German occupation-production Hp35.

My dad suspects that the gun shop owner who bought them for a song just kept them, but we've always wondered. We would love to know where they ended up and I think that if we could come to an agreement, we'd like to buy them back.

So I wonder how practical is this? These are some pretty collectible guns, but can't hurt to try, right?

Is there any harm in posting the serials and seeing what comes up? Is just here fine? Would somewhere else be better?

Thank you for your time.
 
I truly feel your pain as I have gone through a similar experience. Odds are very slim but it never hurts to keep searching. Hope and a little search time here and there might pay off.

Good luck.
 
to answer you question - no.
you can not look up a gun by its serial number in canada.
only thing you could ever hope for is that the gun is listed on a sale site that has the number listed (but most dont)

long story short, your SOL.

if it where me id go to the place where you grandmother sold them and start the trail there where ya last saw them.
if your lucky they may even check the books for ya.
 
funny story...........

I had a family heirloom a few years back, wasn't my family's and I didn't know it was a heirloom. I got a call from the CFC one day out of the blue from a sympathetic women who worked there, a member of the family had contacted the CFC regarding a particular handgun, but she couldn't pass my info out to that person as she knew where the gun was, but she then contacted me directly on their behalf, she then proceeded to give me the contact information for this fellow after telling me the history of the gun that was in my possession. My alarm bells rang a bit, but were silenced when I called the 1-800 number only to continue talking to the same woman who called me initially.........so after sitting on this for a couple days I decided to call this fellow up and get the real story, as now I was curious, and he backed his claims up with copies of receipts and pictures regarding particular people and this particular gun which led me to believe he and the story were legit and this was just not some collector, the original owner of this gun I had was someone special and the executor of the estate sold the guns off as they did not know the historical value of them, and when a number was thrown on the table that I could not in good conscience turn down I quickly began the transfer before either someone came to their wits or decided it wasn't worth that much to them, in the end we were both happy.
So, it may be worth while phoning the CFC with your story, history may repeat itself.
 
The registry data that was released a few weeks back, didn't it have serial numbers? It wouldn't tell you who owns it, but would tell you where (ish) it is.
 
kage123 said:
The registry data that was released a few weeks back, didn't it have serial numbers? It wouldn't tell you who owns it, but would tell you where (ish) it is.
Click to expand...

Interesting?

I recently had a very FA savvy individual tell me he could determine a registration # from a serial #.
Had to do with listing some FA's for sale on consignment.

M
 
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So if I understand, they were not sold by the legal owner, who is looking for them now?
 
There was a WTB on the EE with a specific serial number that ran for a few years with the same sort of goal of finding that one specific gun. It was bumped religiously for as long as I can recall. Not sure if they finally gave up or found their gun as I haven't seen it lately.

But it's an avenue you could try which would get better long term coverage than a thread on the discussion area that'll fade away.

I'd suggest you include the serials in the title so that folks don't need to continuously open the thread. Something like (tagged WTB) title- Looking for Browning Hi Power sn 20480 and Colt 1911 sn-434680 . And then just remember to bump it on a weekly or so basis to keep it resurfacing.

As suggested it's worth a shot.
 
Wouldn't hurt to post an ad for those specific guns. You never know,but if by chance the current owner noticed and was interested he'd sure have you "over a barrel" so to speak. Good luck.
 
if it where me id go to the place where you grandmother sold them and start the trail there where ya last saw them.
if your lucky they may even check the books for ya.[/QUOTE]


I would hope that would never happen, I would never do that.
 
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