Paranoia?D*

 

Why does anyone care?

Their gun, their choice.

 

But I think the OP is wondering if there is a legitimate reason that explains their doing so.

I don't believe that there is. If there were some conceivable reason for a bad guy to want to steal a serial number, it would be far easier just to take one from the readily available published lists of OEM serial number ranges.

 

Some forums won't respond to partial serial numbers. It is a give and take sort of thing. Someone comes to a forum wanting information, but is not willing to share the serial number of the gun they want information on. Every serial number is a part of the puzzle.

The reason most often used is that someone could harvest serial numbers from the internet and then report the gun as being stolen from them. There has to be a proper time line if this was to work, as the police report would have to pre-date the forum appearance. This has been urban legend for as long as we have had internet forums, but have never heard of it actually happening.

 

This has been discussed many times here. Basically it is the fear that their gun may be stolen. Because when you buy a gun used,usually you nor the seller really knows whether or not it was stolen at one time. If it was, the owner may have the serial number on a paper. If he sees it ,He may call police and say hey so and so on the colt forum has my gun that was stolen. Then youd have to go thru a lot of crap and end up probably losing the gun. Every time you buy a used gun, you normally just dont know whether it was stolen or not -so thats just the chance everyone takes when they buy a used gun.
The odds are in your favor that if you bought it from a reputable dealer that is is not stolen, but neither he or you can be sure UNLESS He knew the entire history of ownership of that gun.
So I think that is probably the main reason why people dont like showing their serial numbers

 

My thoughts are people hide them because there are people out there that will copy someone's add and list in on another site for sale and try to scam another person by saying they have that gun so if you don't post your serial number it makes it hard for someone to do it btw it has happened to me I had a gun for sale on g.b and a someone sent me a email Adkins why I had the same gun on arms list for a chaper price in a different location since then I don't post serial numbers In full

 

I had a similar situation happen to me about ten years ago. I was perusing Gunbroker looking at 1911s like I often do, when I saw a very familiar-looking image in the thumbnails. I clicked on the auction, and lo and behold there was one of my own pistols listed on the auction. There were two pictures, full left and right views that I had shared on the Internet forums which this scumbag was using to create a fake auction, hoping to dupe somebody into winning it and sending him money. I took a quick look at the seller's other auctions and found that he had done this with several other pictures of guns he'd plucked off the Internet as well, even stealing some images from a well-known collectible firearms website. I notified the GB staff as well as the other site, and this guy was quickly shut down. From that point on I decided never to show the complete SN of one of my firearms unless I was actually selling it. What could have happened? Well, I could likely have received an angry e-mail from the would-be buyer had he later seen the legit pics of my pistol on the forums and assumed I was the one who screwed him. Then I'd have to go about explaining to him that I wasn't the one who created the auction in the first place. Of course he'd have to prove that it was me, and GB would likely back me up, but it still wouldn't be a whole lot of fun for everyone involved.

While I understand the point JohnnyP makes that full disclosure equals better help with information, human nature tends to breed opportunists who have no qualms about screwing some anonymous person out of their money. And like big_gus says, there's always a small chance that you really do have a gun that was previously reported stolen. When I have a question that requires disclosing the entire serial number I prefer to PM a few trusted individuals rather than telling the entire Internet that I now have Colt serial number 123456. If others don't care about the risks, well it's their choice.

 

Nice response.
Bill

 

For fear of being stolen??? You've got to be kidding me.

The main reason for not publishing the complete serial number is privacy and to prevent unnecessary harassment. Anyone that knows the serial number and location of a gun can file a police report that something was stolen. At that point, the gun gets taken away and you have to go through all the documentation to prove otherwise ... and the perp says that it must be a typo. And you are left to recover your gun, however it was handled and stored.

No, I don't display full serial numbers unless it is pertinent to a listing -- if listing python #40, it might make a lot of difference in pricing and value as compared to #42. But to me, a 1981 K-series python (just under 60,000 manufactured that year) is pretty much a 1981 K-series python ...

So, just because people don't publish full serial numbers doesn't necessarily mean the guns are stolen... or that the people listing them are crooks.

 

......The main reason for not publishing the complete serial number is privacy and to prevent unnecessary harassment. Anyone that knows the serial number and location of a gun can file a police report that something was stolen. At that point, the gun gets taken away and you have to go through all the documentation to prove otherwise .....

This would be my concern. I quote my s/n's online but use x's for the last two digits, as do most posters. Generally using all but the last two of the s/n is enough to date the gun.

 

I always list full serial number in ads, etc... Was wondering if I was doing something wrong?
Some good info received. Thanks again.
Bill in Florida

 

Poppycock.

I don't "hide" serial numbers anymore; I have receipts and/or bills of sale and in Michigan, registration documents showing I am the owner...

 

We sometimes conclude the serial number debate with the well-used joke ....,"I was wondering how everybody else had the same XX serial number as me"

 

If selling I will show. If just sharing, I block them out. On the other hand, I would be more worried about the hidden data in the picture itself.

Data Mining - What hidden information do your photos contain? - Oneiroi

 

I can only think of the jokers who take pics of a gun from gunbroker and run phony scam ads on other sites. If the S N is blocked then it makes it more difficult to pull off the scam because there is no legitimate point of reference and the buyer could find this out with a email to the phony seller and 1 call with the S.N. to Colt that the seller "made up." The facts will not match and scam over.

 

If I ever post a gun to sell, I show the entire serial number in a picture and/or the serial number on the original box, but usually dont post it in the description unless its a "cool one" like extemely low, etc. If I am just showing a gun off, then I X the last 2 digits. I haven't really thought about why I do it except for I figure its really nobody's business to know the serial numbers of my gun collection. I never worried about the stolen gun thing, actually I have actually turned down a few guns in person because they were too good to be true and things didn't seem right. However, I will point out just because you pay maximum value or even overpay like $5000 for a pre-owned "NIB" common variation Python worth $3000 (or whatever gun) and have a receipt doesn't mean its not stolen. Just because a dealer has a gun for sale (unless its brand new from a distributor, never sold at retail or bought it back from the original owner he sold it too), he doesn't know for sure if it hasn't been stolen at some point. They don't run them through a "stolen gun check list". Just something to think about...

 

That's very unfortunate situation DSK with the fake auction/photo stealing issue that happened to you. To each his own on the serial number debate, but in your case, the photo stealing is squelched by an " identifier" embossed across the photo. That's something that no one did 10 years ago, but many do that today, especially businesses. I would like to learn how to do that myself. I don't know if it costs or not, nor the difficulty level.