Gotta insist you retract that smack - you apparently read well enough to get the correct answer DESPITE incorrect info. I bow to your mystical powers!
Yeah, you are, as others have pointed out. And you’ve been on these boards long enough to know how incorrect your post was. I’m commenting on it because I want the OP to know there is nothing for him to worry about.
I’ve owned a successful federally licensed gun dealership for almost 30 years. I do know what I’m talking about. Up until a bit over 45 years ago many guns did not have serial numbers on them. It was not required in the USA until 1968.
There is no universal gun registration or tracking, so even if the OP’s revolver had a serial number there would be very, very limited means to finding out who it belonged to or what it was used for. Both irrelevant anyway and nothing for the OP to care about.
I counted a minimum of 9 ways Bosda was wrong. Massively, amazingly wrong.
Ok, OK, massively wrong, I get it.
I’ll write it off to being a knee-jerk reaction and ignore it.
S&W put the SNs in some odd locations now and then although I see it more in the model 10 lines than others. I had one with what looked to be two different numbers; one inside the frame and another on the butt basically on the same piece of metal. Drove the gunsmith nuts trying to figure out which to use at first for the transfer since both looked perfectly “factory”. It turned out both were factory; the one up at the frame by where the cylinder closed was the “legal” number and the one on the flat of the butt one put on at the factory as part of a special order for of some kind. And there is the old tapered-barrel 4 inch I have with the number on the frame under the factory grips. :smack: With Smiths, just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there and someone tried to remove it.
Now with the Herter’s versions made overseas towards the end when they were fighting with the BATF ----------- all bets are off. It didn’t matter what government agency you were talking about, the Old Man took their rules and regulations more as suggestions than law.
You meant well, you were just conflating my situation with a completely different scenario—one in which the serial number has been filed off. That’s a completely different matter entirely. I have never personally handled nor even seen such a gun in my entire life. If I were to encounter one, I wouldn’t even touch it—at least not without gloves on. And I would in all probability report it to the authorities.
nm
While Bosda’s advice and concern certainly are wrong concerning the context of Washoe’s OP, I don’t think that he’s necessarily overall wrong about being wary of a “found” firearm’s provenance.
By “found,” I mean a firearm that you have literally found, whether “on the ground” as you pass by (don’t touch! call the police immediately!), or buried in the bottom of a trunk in grandpa’s/grandma’s basement or attic (even if that is very unlikely to be a “problem”), or that deal that seems just too good to be true from “that guy” at a gun show (and the “gun nuts” amongst us know exactly who I mean by “that guy” at gun shows).
Of course, the degree of caution one might want to exercise varies by location and jurisdiction; “that guy” at the gun show might just be a fella up on hard times looking to make a quick buck by getting rid of an impulse purchase that he really doesn’t need or use, and not some skeevy dude looking to dump a hot or stolen gun. Or maybe not.
Then again, even a “found” gun in grandma’s/grandpa’s effects, or a family heirloom being passed on, as is the OP’s case, might be a cause for considerable legal concern in some jurisdictions. Bosda’s advice will be echoed somewhat by me with regard to those locations and jurisdictions with tighter firearms ownership restrictions: get yourself informed about the laws that pertain to you and your locale.
I am curious about what jurisdictions or locations you are thinking of. At least in the US, even in places that have strict controls (NYC) or outright bans (Morton Grove) there is/was an automatic amnesty for people coming forward with “found guns”. You may get investigated if it turns out there is an old body on the firearm (someone got killed with it in 1953) but I am not aware of any place where you would face legal action just for finding one among someone’s personal effects even if you waited years before asking.
This is typically the case. However, an overzealous police chief and/or DA’s office looking to pad their stats before an election could possibly make someone’s life a living hell just because. The odd horror story or three I’ve come across over the years essentially boils down to a “letter of the law/spirit of the law” kind of thing.