U.S. Marked 10-5

[444 Magnum]

I've found four government marked pistols in my father's collection.

Two Colt Police Positive's in 38 S&W. One was marked RHKP 8908 (Royal Hong Kong Police) and the other was marked 'PROPERTY OF THE GOVERNMENT OF PUERTO RICO'. Both were suffering from poor storage and I sent them on to the auction house.

The third is a 12-2 marked GSP which I posted.

The fourth is this 10-5 that is marked U.S on the back strap.
Serial # is D1537xx

My question is this- if I letter this pistol, how precise can I expect the destination to be listed?

Will it likely be a distributor, a government warehouse or the specific agency?

Thanks for any replies.

 

[murphydog]

There are several threads about similar guns, here is one of them:

Smith and Wesson model 10.. US

A letter of authenticity will give you the gun's ship date and destination, likely a military armory or base, but nothing about to where the gun went after this such as a specific unit or location. It would still be worthwhile to get the letter in my opinion.

 

[Retired W4]

It looks too nice to have been issued in Vietnam but it is from that time frame. The US Army had tons of them, most of which ended up in storage at Ft. Rucker. I don't know anything about their final disposition. I was issued one just like it in the RVN. I should have told the CO it fell out of the cockpit door and smuggled it home. I was way too busy to think about stuff like that.

 

[kwill1911]

Several thousand of these in your SN range shipped in July, 1969. Roy has traditionally shown them shipping to the Boston Disbursing Center but I think that is just the "bill to" address. What Army base they went to isn't usually part of the letter. These were typically issued to Army aviators.

 

[sigp220.45]

Here’s the letter on mine.

 

[Retired W4]

Here’s the letter on mine.

From Boston that shipment probably went to Oakland Army Depot then on to Vietnam.