Charlie, thanks for taking the time to expand on my superficial characterization of a larger reality. I appreciate the further information. I kind of knew when I posted that I was giving a dime answer to a dollar question, so I'm glad you showed up with the other 90 cents.
I suspect that the Model 56 would not be the sort of gun the Air Force would trade off to qualifying agencies or in permitted exchange programs, and I further suspect the scarcity with which they are encountered indicates that there just aren't that many of them that escaped the furnace, hammer or band saw. I do understand the general principle that some forms of interagency transaction are "leaky," as any complex body of regulations will contain exceptions or permissions for a favored class of consumer. As a simple example, guns that are not on the California DOJ-certified list, and thus presumably barred from entry, can still make into this state under LEO exemptions or double-action/single-action modifications that can be reversed once the gun is in-state and registered. But it just doesn't seem from observed data that the M56 benefited from that kind of "leakiness."
I know the gun with which I started this thread is a mutt. But I think I have come to terms with the seller and will be acquiring it for MUCH less than some of the numbers mentioned above. I am approaching it in the same spirit you described -- as a shooter-grade gun whose collector appeal is severely constrained by its thin finish and deliberate erasure. I plan to document it fully on this forum and for the SWCA data base so that after it leaves my hands (when my estate is settled, for example, because I plan to own all my guns for a long, long time) it will not be possible for a faker to acquire it and restamp the backstrap so he can pass it off as an unmodified specimen.
In the meantime, I will simply keep it as a roughed-up conversation starter when I take it to the range. In my mind, it will be in the same category as my refinished N-frame .45 Colt target revolver that started life as a Second Model .455 Hand Ejector -- inauthentic and devalued by its modification, but still interesting as a thing of its kind.
And nobody else in the room will have one like it.
