Colt Model 1921 Thompson .45ACP

[03clyde]

I'm trying to identify serial numbers of a group of Model 1921's that were purchased by the New York State Police in the early - mid 1920s. If someone is interested and has the reference books to accomplish this, I'd appreciate a PM. That agency no longer has records dating back to that time.

[smkummer]

All have written books on Thompsons. Frank Iannamico of www.machinegunbooks.com Tracie L. Hill and Gordon Herigstad. good luck

[03clyde]

All have written books on Thompsons. Frank Iannamico of www.machinegunbooks.com Tracie L. Hill and Gordon Herigstad. good luck

Thanks for the link.

[Glennster]

Colt made Tommy guns?

[guy sajer]

Colt made Tommy guns?

15,000 m1921


Here's a good forum for TSMG owners http://machinegunboards.com/forums/

[nhdblfan]

They are great investments too !

Check out these two;

http://www.amoskeag-auction.com/77/101.html

http://www.amoskeag-auction.com/77/102.html

beats the S&P !!

been wanting one since they where going for 15K a couple years ago,have to just close your eyes and keep the bid card up I guess.

[dfariswheel]

Colt made Tommy guns?

Yep.
Auto Ordnance, formed by General John T. Thompson didn't have a production plant so they contracted the actual manufacture to Colt.
These guns have Colt manufacturing stamps on the left rear of the receiver.

Colt made enough receivers, frames, and parts to assemble 15,000 guns. Up until WWII that was ALL the Thompson guns available.
The guns just didn't sell and in the late 1930's, most of the 15,000 were still unassembled and unsold.

Late in the 1930's, Thompson and his investors sold the failing Auto Ordnance company to a man named McGuire, just in time for him to make a huge fortune selling the gun during the war.
With the war coming and the Thompson the only SMG available, gigantic orders poured in and the last of the original Colt-made guns were quickly sold.
McGuire and Auto Ordnance still had no production plant, so Auto Ordnance again contracted out manufacture, this time to Savage Arms.
Colt was busy with other war orders, and had taken a hit on their reputation by the mis-use the gun was put through by the 1920's and 30's gangsters.
They wanted no more to do with the Thompson gun.
Savage made many thousands for England, and at least took huge orders for Thompson guns from Russia, France, and other countries.

Once the war started, Savage continued making Thompson guns, and Auto Ordnance finally built it's own production plant in Bridgeport, Conn.
When the M3 grease gun was adopted and the Thompson was declared obsolete and production stopped, McGuire simply boxed up the tools and parts and put them in storage.

In the 1950's, George Numrich of Numrich Arms, later Gun Parts Corporation, bought the company.
This is where Numrich got it's parts to sell... by buying defunct gun companies, which means they usually got crates of parts and some musty old company records.
Numrich almost fainted when they opened the crates and also found completed Thompson guns and the entire Auto Ordnance prototype collection.

Being in an earlier, more reasonable day, the ATF actually allowed Numrich to register and keep the assembled guns and receivers since no one knew that these were in the crates, and no one intended to break the law.

Numrich used the tooling and jigs and parts to make new guns and restored and repaired older guns for many years.
In the 1960's, he decided to meet the desire for a legal Thompson gun by building a semi-auto gun using as many of the surplus parts as possible.
In those days, the ATF didn't want a gun made that even resembled a Thompson gun.
The Plainfield company made an M1 Carbine stock that looked vaguely like a Thompson with a cast aluminum stock with cast front Thompson-like grip and a walnut Thompson stock.
The ATF almost refused to allow Plainfield to make it.

When Numrich started the design of his semi-auto gun the ATF refused to allow it to proceed.
Since there was no law about look-alike guns, Numrich threatened to take the ATF to court. Knowing a judge would hand them their heads, they allowed the gun to go forward, but made it clear that if it was easy to convert to full-auto, they'd come after him.

Numrich came up with the decidedly oddball semi-auto design that uses a lowered receiver height with a three spring action, a dog-leg firing pin, and a cylindrical hammer.
Numrich held a news conference in which he bragged how he'd spent $100,000 developing a semi-auto Thompson that couldn't be converted to full-auto or open bolt fire.
Within two months, The Shotgun News was full of ads selling plans on how to convert the gun to open bolt, and/or full-auto.

In the late 1990's Numrich Arms sold the Auto Ordnance company to Kahr Arms, who still made the semi-auto guns. Some of the parts are still WWII surplus parts.

[kenhwind]

I do not believe that George Numrich had much to do with the semi-auto Auto Ordnance Thompson. I think he had passed and Ira Trask had purchaced AO or was CEO and developed it. They also made some new Automatic versions. At the time it was "Gun Parts Corp" not "Numrich Arms".

In the book the "Gun that Made the Twenties Roar" Helmer; there is a chapter dealing with this subject, but my book is in storage so I cannot be specific.

[dfariswheel]

Gun Parts Corp came later.

I have Edition #17 of The World Guide To Gun Parts, which was Gun Parts catalog.
The front cover lists Gun Parts Corp as "The Successors to Numrich Arms Corp Parts Division".
It also has a short dedication to George Numrich who'd died in 1991.
There's a picture of him holding a Thompson gun.
The dedication says that Numrich was the founder of Numrich Arms from which Gun Parts was purchased.

[skwcoltguy]

Yes, Amoskeag just auctioned a Colt M1921 that was a NYSP gun last week....they had several other police M1921s and 2 that were from a railroad....interesting history on those gems.