Gun show carbines

[DaveHH]

There were 12M Americans under arms during WW2 I had thought 8M but have recently read that it was 12. There were enough Carbines made to arm half of those people. As far as how many early configuration carbines made it through? It has to be thousands. It was the most stolen weapon of the war, that and 45s. Soldiers stole weapons and brought them home.
Let's say in Petaluma where I was raised the Army data Center during WW2 was called Two Rock. Let's say that the head medical officer at Two Rock was issued a carbine as part of the TOE. It sat in a locker all through the war and it was taken out once a year to qualify or the Doc said "No". Either way it was a safe queen. When the Army changed weapons, the carbine was sent to a depot and put in a rack along with thousands of other carbines. It didn't get rebuilt and it didn't get used. At that point it could have been sold through the NRA for $20 or could have been stolen out of Two Rock and no one the wiser. Bingo, an original configuration carbine. Or there could be a carbine made during 1944 that has some late features like type 2 band and type 2-3 sight. Left the factory that way. It was carried by an officer, never shot and when inspected would not come close to rebuilding. it went into a depot where it left in a white sack or an NRA sale. Another original gun.

Brian Q. Had a pretty fool proof way to identify an original gun, it has 100% of the correct parts and one that isn't. If it was a corrected faker, that AU recoil plate on my Winchester 5.6 would be so far gone so fast you wouldn't see it. Thus my Winchester is thought to be original. Underwood sent 5,000 recoil plates to Winchester in Nov of 1943, my carbine was made in Mar 1944 (and there's another w/ an AU plate, a mirror image of mine in the data base a few numbers off). My Inland I looked over myself. It has everything correct per Chris Albright's fine article but the HI handguard (Stock is also HI) is so close to being a reject I can't see how it made it through. The trench to use the sights is so off that it covers a good portion of the front sight. But Inland was in a hurry in Oct 1944 so it passed into the system. All finish is correct and the shadow is on the barrel with the line where the sand blasting stops on the receiver. I'm saying it is original and since it stays here it doesn't matter. I'd put that up to anyone to look it over and say it is a corrected gun.

If you think that part swapping is a sore subject, you should have been here 20 years ago.