[Steve H. Bunch]

I have a nice 1911A1 commercial .45 automatic, DOB 1924. On the front grip strap in small characters is Y5047. Anybody have any ideas on this early 1911A1???? Thanks.. Steve B.

 

[dfariswheel]

1924 would put your gun in the first year's production of the A1.

Since this is a commercial gun, the letters could be a company or police dept control number.

Unfortunately, old guns very often had mysterious numbers and stamps on them that cannot be ID'd at this late date.

At the time, SOMEBODY had reason to go to the trouble to stamp the guns, but usually fail to record the REASON, or WHO did so.

So, unless there are more guns out there with simular marks, and some collector managed to find out what they were for, I doubt you will ever know what they were for.

 

[Steve H. Bunch]

Thanks for the input. It is interesting to note, that this number was stamped with one stamp and not individual dies. Steve B.

 

[jwilson09]

Your gun was most likely used by a police or prison agency, I have a GM made in 1953 which has a second serial number on the frame next to the Colt serial number. Our guns probably have interesting histories but we'll probably never know the details....