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Old 06-15-2017, 01:29 AM
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Absalom Absalom is offline
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Originally Posted by Targets Guy View Post
I took them at their word. Here is the reply....

Hello Michael,
Thank you for your email. Unfortunately these conversions were done for the Ministry Of Defence so no records were kept by us. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Kind Regards,
Paul Owens.
I would give the good Mr. Owens the benefit of the doubt and assume he answered to the best of his knowledge, but a look at the chronology on the company history website reveals that Cogswell & Harrison changed hands a few times and then liquidated in 1982, after which not much seems to have occurred until the revival of the name and the production of their "first gun of the 21st century" in 2012. That makes one wonder how much institutional knowledge, if any, remains in the present-day incarnation of the company about things that happened soon after WW II.

Case in point, of course it's plain nonsense that the company would not have records of invoices for any work because it was done for the MOD. But it is indeed unlikely that after all the changes those records would be easily accessible, or for that matter that anyone could be bothered to start digging through old boxes of papers in some basement to satisfy an e-mail inquiry from the US .

I just paid £28 to get a copy of an invoice from Webley & Scott who billed the Ministry of Supply, London, £5 10s for a .38 Mk IV in 1941.
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