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This revolver was shipped as
part of a United States Navy order. It was shipped on December 21st, 1943 to
United States Navy, Rosslyn NY "Rosslyn Navy Yard". The original contract for this
order was W-478-ORD-3847 and was signed on 5/15/1943 with a original price
of $20.50. According to Charles Pates book the Navy Strategic Services was
in Rosslyn and was responsible for supplying large quantities of S&W .38s to
the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which was the predecessor to the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). At some point some one replaced the
walnut grips with high quality period production (1940s) genuine Ivory grips
signed with a single makers mark on the inside. They show nice aging and are
of the finest quality I have seen. Pictured below is a image showing the
standard American Walnut grips as well.
The Victory model was so named
for the "V" prefix which was placed before the serial number and represented
"Victory" against the Axis powers in World War II. The pistol shown below is
a late 1943 production Victory model revolver in the .38 special configuration.
Serial numbers for the .38
special Victory model began at about V1 in early 1942 and ran until
VS811119 with a date of late August of 1945 (end of production). V1 to
approximately V39,999 were predominately .38 S&W Caliber (I have
observed
revolvers in the 1-40000 range in .38 special caliber). Serial numbers are located on Inside right
grip, frame butt, Cylinder, extractor star, and bottom of barrel. Crane and crane recess
are also serial numbered to each other, but this is a different number then
the revolvers serial number as is correct for Victory model revolvers.
Regarding the WB-S-STG 144
stamping - The District of Wurttemberg-Baden was indicated by the letters
WB. The following letter(s) indicated whether the police agency was a city (Stadtpolizei,
the letter S), or Landkreis under the control of the Landespolizei (the
letters LP). If the weapon was within a city a third set of letters
identified which city, in the above case STG stood for Stuttgart. The 4
digits following the letters was the inventory number used by the particular
German agency. Thus, WB-S-STG was the American Occupation Zone district of
Wurttemberg-Baden, city police, Stuttgart.
The Semi-Annual German Police Personnel and Equipment Report dated 30 Jun
1949, prepared by OMGUS-Civil Administration Division, Bad Nauheim on 08 St
1949 indicates the German police in the district of Wurttemberg-Baden had
been issued 4,226 pistols and 3,743 M1 carbines.
In 1952 the tripartite agreement between the Western Allies merged the
American, British, and French Zones as far as the German government and
commerce. The district of Wurttemberg-Baden ceased to exist. It was merged
with the other two districts from the French zone and became the new state
of Baden-Wurttemberg.
It is not know how long the city police carried the U.S. pistols.
Technically occupation didn't end in Germany until 1955. The M1 carbines
given to the German police became property of the Germans. Between 1955 and
the early 1980's various German agencies sold their carbines to German gun
brokers. These carbines and revolvers went all over the world via various
gun brokers, including thousands back to the USA. Some before the 1968 Gun
Control Act, some after. Those after have the required importer marking.
Those before, do not.
Special thanks to James Mock for contributing this information to
CoolGunSite.com. |
