The pristine finish is interesting for a gun made this early in the war. On the second photo the barrel seems to show a different hue than the frame. But the stampings on the right are absolutely sharp and it appears original.
Don’t put any money on this, it’s very speculative, but here is a quote from the Hellstrom notebooks (as rendered by Ed/opoefc in an old post):
“... 5/22/42 to 8/17/42 Some guns were parkerized instead of Black Magic blue. These were all sandblasted. 2187 shipped between these dates to DSC orders. Navy did not get any Parkerized guns. Ser#s around 980,000...”
Unfortunately these guns aren’t identifiable even with a history letter as the terminology in the old shipping documents is inconsistent and unreliable. But you may have one of these.
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