Age of Cartridges

[Ben_hutcherson]

A few months back, I bought a gun and was given a dozen or so old cartridges to go with it.

All of them are 158gr(I think) LRN 38 specials in nickel plated cases. About half are headstamped "R-P 38 Spl", and the headstamp looks(as best as I can tell) identical to some Remington 38 special I recently bought.

The other half are headstamped "W W 38 Special".

I don't have boxes for either of these.

All of the current production LRN ammo that I'm familiar with is in brass cases, so I'm guessing that these are probably at least a few years old.

Anyone have a guess or a general age range for how old these might be?

Thanks

 

[SMSgt]

No idea on the age, but loose cartridges like that without the boxes have little collector value.

 

[Ben_hutcherson]

I'm not really interested in value, and didn't expect that they would have much aside from their value as live ammo...I'd just like to know how old they are.

 

[Alk8944]

They could be anywhere from 1960 or so to somewhere in the 1990s for the Winchester and until last week for the Remington.

 

[DWalt]

Agree - R-P headstamp began in the early 1960s, W-W in the late 60s. There are a few variations in details of the headstamps that can be used to date them more precisely, but they are definitely not very old.