International Harvester Question

A few years ago I bought an IHC in the Hudson Valley of N.Y. It is in pristine shape with a ser# in the 4M,500 range. The second digit from the right has been spot annealed and restamped from a 3 (overstamped) perfectly to an 8. I tried to get some/any information on why, when or where this was done and no one seems to know anything about it. Theories include fudging the numbers, illegal export and re- import at one time, etc. I questioned Orion on it and TP said that he had seen 4 of them in his experience (with similar strike-overs in various digits, but did not know anything about it. I know that IHC had various problems getting into production, especially at the start of production and their are many variations;enough to foster a separate collection of IHC garands by many individuals. Does anyone have any info on this mystery and is/was this number changing confined to only IHC or has it been seen in any of the other manufacturing brands like SA, WRA or H&R? Thank you for any ideas/info that you have. J.Cooper

Very interesting. Can you post a photo of this over stamping?

How would they do that exactly? Would it be heated and stamped when red hot? Then heated and quenched? I think the originals were marked before heat treating because you see some that have a slight depression at the numbers and they are hard as hell after treatment.

First, it's done by a process called spot-annealing, meaning that just the number "3" was heated up with an acetylene torch to soften the steel, and then re-stamped with a number "8". Then, because the spot-annealed area is now a different color than the rest of the receiver, the receiver heel was usually painted with grey or flat black paint to camouflage the change. The "3s" could appear anywhere in the serial number, which totally discounts the possibility of this having been some sort of factory modification. Yes, original receiver heels were stamped prior to heat-treating the receivers.

Second, this was done to disguise the serial numbers of some IHC rifles supposedly brought into the USA from Canada by less than legal means. At a minimum, several hundred or possibly even a couple thousand rifles were modified this way, including some SAs. Yes, I actually saw an eight million SA.

Some things these particular rifles have in common: 1) if there was a 3 in the serial number, it's now an 8, so pretty common; 2) Most all metal was reparkerized, with receiver heels and gas systems painted; 3) barrels were usually sewer pipes--dark and dirty--and could be worn/rusty too; 4) wood was usually worn, oil-soaked, dinged-up and dirty, but usually cartouches were present, even after some crude sanding. These rifles were reassembled without any consideration or knowledge of originality, so parts were all mixed up. They were sold cheaply when there were many available, usually under the going prices.

Supposedly these rifles came from a military school some place outside the US, and the bores were crap from firing blanks and not being cleaned, but that's just the story. When brought in, the metal finish and wood was very worn, hence the refinishing. Hundreds if not thousands of these IHCs were sold at guns shows in Denver from the late 1980s through the early 2000s. They're all gone now, and the guys who used to sell them have died, which is why I feel free to put this info out on the web. There was an article on these rifles in the GCA newsletter a few years ago, but at the time the sellers were still alive, and the author wisely decided to not divulge all the known details at that time. What I've said here was the conclusion I reached, and for the most part, the consensus of those who assisted the GCA author. I knew the sellers reasonably well, and they were the source of most of the info I have related. By no means do I consider these IHCs to be collectible--they are just oddities at best.

This was totally explained by Dave McClain and laid out with photos in the Summer 2010 GCA Journal. It's just one example of hundreds that say you are missing the best M1 research if you are not a GCA member. C'mon, $25?