I would assume that they purchased a load of them. But that is only based on the fact that when some of them were offered for sale afterwards (still in pretty dire condition I'm told.....) they had the SKN serial numbers from the List contract.

I saw another load that were culled from the Cadets and TA from the South West district and some of those had the old ZZ-1234 and SA60-A12345 type 'lost number' serial numbers most commonly found on the old Berridge type 1" signal pistols