1958 Stolen Carbines From Ohio Armory

[painter777]

Fellow member Pete51577 shared with us on The Carbine Collectors Club Forum information he came across about a robbery. Full credit goes to him, I just wanted to share the serial numbers of the M1 Garands and M1 Carbines that were taken. Some were recovered. I'll attach a link, it's still a developing thread as he has time to post.

Link: 1958 Armory Theft Carbines - The Carbine Collector's Club - Page 1

Top of page are M1's
http://www.uscarbinecal30.com/forum/.../IMG_9277.jpeg

http://www.uscarbinecal30.com/forum/.../IMG_9278.jpeg

http://www.uscarbinecal30.com/forum/.../IMG_9279.jpeg

[jimb16]

Its a very interesting thread and well worth your time to go and read it.

[browningautorifle]

I'm wondering why there wasn't a footnote on SRS to note stolen weapons that hadn't been recovered. I have a large list of M1 rifle serial numbers under one million. There are lots there and maybe I'll see what turns up.

[painter777]

Marty Black of The Carbine Club had mentioned he wanted to forward the complete list of M1 Garands to the GCA.
He just posted on 10-17:

"Dave McClain, the keeper of the GCA's serial number data base, reports that - of the 136 stolen M1 Rifles that he has checked against known reported Garands - 22 (16%) were subsequently sold through the CMP program! These were rifles that were obviously recovered by law enforcement and found their way back into the Army's inventory."

The M1 serial numbers recovered were not listed. Maybe in a upcoming article ?

On Nov 4th 1958 when the Authorities forced the plane down in Morgantown, West Virginia it reportedly had 121 weapons whose serial numbers corresponded with the weapons stolen from the Canton National Guard Armory on October 14, 1958. Also on board were 2-50 Cal Machine guns whose serial numbers did not match anything from the Armory. From the FBI files I've read, I've seen no break down of the 121 guns recovered. I have No idea how many were M1's or Carbines at this time.

Here's the link again if you want to follow. Some of the links in the posts lead to the FBI reports etc:
1958 Armory Theft Carbines - The Carbine Collector's Club - Page 1

I think it would make a good movie.

[Gosport16]

Glancing through that serial number list of stolen weapons it occurred to me, what kind of a jerk wouldn't have put them in numerical order? That way they could be more efficiently and accurately checked against other inventories (such as at gun/pawn shops, police impounds, posted at gun shows).

Time is money and that's at least 2-3 minutes per weapon with that screwed up list. If you had numerous in inventory how seriously would you have checked and how accurate would you have been?

Perhaps someone didn't want those numbers checked properly. The list maker and whoever approved it would be the first people on my list if I was CID investigating this crime.

[jimb16]

In all likelyhood, that was taken directly from the original packing slip. The carbine numbers would have been listed in the order in which they were put into the original shipping case. Since they were all issued carbines, no particular order would have been followed, just grab one, list the number and stick it in the case. If the numbers were painted on the outside of the case, they would appear in the same order as the list. They weren't consecutively numbered anyway.