17 Nov 2024 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

John Garand (above, second from right) was present for a ceremony at Springfield Armory on May 17, 1957, commemorating the last M1 rifle to come off the assembly line, Serial No. 6084405. Between July 1937 and May 1957, more than 5 million M1 Garand rifles were produced by Springfield Armory, Winchester, H&R, International Harvester and others.



The last M1 rifle to come off the assembly line was Serial No. 6084405 on May 17, 1957, and this rifle is on display at the Springfield Armory National Historic Site museum. However, this was not the highest serial number used: M1 rifles were not assembled in sequential serial number order, and some receivers with higher numbers were assembled earlier. The highest-known M1 rifle serial number is 6100499 based on Director of Civilian Marksmanship records.

[Bob Womack]

Which number was the one that was presented to John Cantius Garand, himself?

Bob

[browningautorifle]

Which number was the one that was presented to John Cantius Garand

1,000,000...

[RCS]

I had the chance to buy 6100256 some years ago for $2500.00 but passed on it. It had a 5 or 6 of 1956 dated barrel,

I made a rubbing of the serial number & logo

[Bob Seijas]

An Even Garander Finale
Regarding “The Garand Finale” (August 2024, p. 28), I have some information
to add that was discovered on a 1994 research trip to the Sales and Donations
section of Rock Island Arsenal. Prior to that trip, readers would
periodically ask American Rifleman what the highest Garand serial number was, and
the early answers quoted the accepted wisdom from government records that the
last M1 was Serial No. 6084405 assembled at a May 17, 1957 ceremony in Springfield
attended by John Garand and on display at the Armory Museum. Eventually, a reader
would write something like, “You said the highest Garand serial was 6084405, but I have one
numbered 6091234.”
That resulted in a follow-up explaining that rifles were not assembled in serial
number order and that it is possible to find higher numbers made earlier. It added that
“the highest M1 serial number recorded at Springfield Armory is 6099905,” and collectors accepted this as definitive—until a perfect National Match M1 numbered 6100256 turned up at the Ohio Gun Show!
This engendered my trip to Moline, Illinois to try to run it down, and what I found was daunting: The records were small slips of paper about the size of an index card, filed in cabinets like a library catalog—drawers and drawers of them—maybe half a million. There was a slip for every rifle sold or donated to civilians, museums, VFWs, American Legions, foreign governments, etc.!
Well, the highest M1 number should be easy, go to the last slip in the last drawer and look... except that this turned out to be a 23,000,000 number! Besides that whopper, there was a 12,000,000 and several in the 7,000,000 and
8,000,000 ranges. I asked Joe Casadei, the head of the section, how that could be. He said that the data came from many different reporting agencies and that he had no choice but to accept what they submitted. In addition, Sales and
Donations employed a lot of summer help to transcribe the data to the cards, mostly teenage girls from the local high school. We know mistakes are easy to make, especially if you are not familiar with the subject. The cards had boxes
for “Model” and “Type”—if you don’t know the subject, an M1 is an M1, so there were innumerable M1 carbine serials mixed in. Ditto for “Rifle Cal. .30”— lots of 1903 Springfield numbers. I recorded the addresses of several American
Legion Posts that had received 6,900,000 Garands and wrote to them for clarification. One was an M1 carbine, the other two were actually 5,900,000 numbers. The 23,000,000 record was clearly a 2,000,000 rifle with a duplicated digit.
However, I found five National Match rifles with serials above 6100000. The highest was 6100499 sold by the DCM to a shooter in Connecticut for $98 in 1958. The complete account was featured in the Winter 1994 GCA Journal. Years
later, Roger Miner showed up at a GCA convention wearing a shirt with “I Own 6100499” on the back in large letters. His daughter wrote an article on him and his rifle that appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of the magazine. The highest M1 serial number was solved.

Bob Seijas, Chairman Emeritus, The Garand Collectors Ass’n