1941 1911a1

[c-j]

I just acquired a 1911A1 from 1941 with the RS (Robert Sears) inspector stamp. It is numbered in the 742600 range. It is blue and not Parked. Would the bluing be the correct finish?
Thanks guys I will appreciate your imput.

cj

[Duane Hansen]

Please show us some pictures but I'm pretty sure that any Blued 1911A1 above about 734,000 would be suspect.

[oldcanuck]

I thought there were both blue and parked examples produced up until somewhere around serial number 760000........

[westgard]

I've got one that is almost 400 earlier/lower than yours and mine is parked. It hasn't been re-worked...

[exitwounds]

If you find a blued RS Colt past the 735000 serial number range, run away from it in a hurry. I don't believe a legitimate blued 1911A1 Colt past the 735000 serial range has shown up.

[Johnny P]

Clawson first published the information that some 1911A1 Colts were blued up into the 780,000 range based on information he considered reliable, but the example pistol turned out to be refinished. In his latest Collector's Guide he does lower that to the 760,000 serial number range, but so far there is no evidence to show that any original pistol was blued past the 734,000 range.
If anyone has an original blued Colt 1911A1 past the mid 734,000 serial number range, please post pictures.

[KeithNyst]

As usual, Johnny is dead on. My '41, is sn 751xxx and is parkerized; i've done many searches on '41s and have never come across one blued above the range in Johnny's reply above. Would be intestesting to see who has the highest serial-numbered, legitimate, blued '41 out there and can document it with pics here.

[emmagee1917]

I have one in the 742,800 range that is orig. I'll drag it out in the next couple of days and see if it's blue or parked.
Chris

[Scott Gahimer]

I believe the pistol I show here is one of the last 1000 blued Colt M1911A1 pistols ever produced. It is serial number 734204, and was in the July 18, 1941 shipment of 1000 pistols to Springfield Armory.

When examining the shipping records in Mr. Clawson's 429 page book on page 396, I see beginning in October 1940, Colt made regular monthly shipments to Springfield Armory through August 1941, with only 1 exception on 7/18/41.

The shipments listed are: 10/28/40, 11/26/40, 12/27/40, 1/30/41, 2/28/41, 3/29/41, 4/30/41, 5/29/41, 6/28/41, 7/18/41, 7/31/41, 8/28/41.

Mr. Clawson reports pistol 729993 as being the assembled May 19, 1941 and listed as Parkerized. He also states the type of finish was not normally listed in Colt's records. So I interpret that to mean 729993 was probably the first Parkerized pistol manufactured by Colt.

The 7/18/41 (1000) gun shipment serial range 734178-735177 I believe was the last shipment Colt ever made which included blued M1911A1 pistols.

We have years of research by numerous collectors and multiple observations to support this conclusion. Why was there one additional shipment out of normal sequence made on 7/18/41? I believe it was to clear out the last remaining blued pistols and set the production line up with Parkerizing equipment.

I do not know whether all 1000 pistols in the 7/18/41 shipment were blue. There may have been some Parkerized pistol included to make up the 1000 pistols for the shipment.

I agree with the statement that Colt's standard finish was Parkerized by about serial number 735000. It may have been 734800+/-, or 735100+/-. I don't think we have enough observations to narrow it beyond that.

Anyway...here is the pistol that I'll claim is from the last shipment of blued Colt M1911A1 pistols. Others may disagree.

[SloopJohnB]

Beautiful example Scott!