Well some months ago I was cruising an out of state GS. I find a cute nickle J frame, its missing the grips. I look it over and I guess the nickle was redone at some point. I also see its not model marked, a three screw with a six digit no letter serial number. I make a deal, I buy several guns a year from this seller so I let him ship them in bulk to save him time and me money. So it stays with him for three months, I am in no rush, and oh I did buy two more from him after this, anyhow.
I get home with my new receipt for my newest purchase and cruise the forum looking at flat latch guns, fun! Well a fellow forum member has a gun thats pretty close in serial number, amazing, no? His however, was part of the Japanese contract, wow thats pretty cool, I think. So I decide that I should letter this gun and find out, if its a Japanese contract gun and if that nice nickle is factory.
Well I do finally get the gun shipped to my ffl and get it home. I find some decent looking factory correct vintage stocks and a pair of Sambar Stags to dress it up. I do send for a letter I guess its mixed results...
Shipped December 5 1960, good so far.
Delivered to Sloans Sporting Goods, New York City, oh...
And it was factory blue, well I kinda knew that...
But wait, theres more
The letter goes on to say,
"This revolver shipped out of the group that was being built for the Japanese Government"
I think that that is kinda cool, I wonder why they pulled it?
Next thing I found by looking on the internet is, Sloans Sporting goods in NY, is interesting. They were at this time the importer for Charles Daly shotguns.
Charles Daly firearms - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
It does not say they had a store in NY,just the importer. So perhaps this was owned by someone that worked for them? Maybe M36s were in demand and this was a priority client so they pulled it? Maybe it was a store and they just sold it over the counter to any guy with $50? However it seems Sloans was less than one mile from John Jovinos Gun Shop in lower Manhattan, so it would seem odd that two stores would be that close. Also Jovinos was a big player so I dont know, just guesses on my part
I did buy it in NY and the store does a lot of business in NYC.
Its a mystery I suppose, still its a great gun and am glad I have it!
I hope you enjoyed my little tail of mystery and intrigue. Its part of what makes this hobby fun!!
My M 36 Story, I thought I had an interesting one, maybe I do after all
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