I've been meaning to add a Mark IV to my collection for a while. Initially I'd been looking for a standard 5" War Finish specimen. But while these pop up up on auction sites on a regular basis, decent ones seem to be rather popular with collectors. Blue Book says 450 for a 100% one, but on the last one in good condition (by no means 100%), I bailed out at 600 and it sold for 750, and it wasn't the first time that happened. Blue book my rear end.
Then I came across this very nice one. A-prefix series, so 1947-1957. No rough war finish, but solid post-war blue. A non-factory-looking O.P.P. stamp above the Birmingham proofs, which according to the seller indicated Ontario Provincial Police. I could kill two birds with one stone, by acquiring a nice Webley AND adding another department-marked gun to my police revolver collection. In view of the prices for war finish guns, the 600 it cost me weren't cheap but not out of line.
Lettering a Webley is a bargain. For £28, about $42 on my credit card, you get not just a letter with the info, but also color copies of the invoice documents. So I not only know the date of sale, Jan. 9, 1951, and the serials of all 50 guns in the shipment (crossed off by hand by whoever did the final check before shipping), but also that the not very well executed O.P.P. stamping was factory, and that the gun crossed on the S.S. Beaverburn, from Liverpool. Not that the last info is terribly relevant, but it's cool to know anyhow
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The O.P.P. issued Webleys until the early 1960s; by 1962, new officers got the Colt Police Positive Special in .38 Spl. instead, according to a former officer who started that year and whose testimony I found on a Canadian collector site, and only some oldtimers still carried the Webley. This likely explains the excellent preservation of my gun, just moderate holster wear on the barrel and a few other edges: it was in service at most less than 10 years.