Examining the ship dates for 6 months prior to 9/7/45, delivery numbers documented by Clawson show that an average of 9422 guns were delivered each month. Serial number 2669404 is 9086 units beyond what is supposed to be the last pistol manufactured by Ithaca, and 24,209 short of the end of total Ithaca serial number assignment. Maybe they did, but I don't see any additional context to the subject after the Clawson work. It's certainly possible that there is more to it, and that we are assuming that all 3 authors fully vetted Ithaca production when that might not be the case. My question is this.Has anyone else looked at those same records, or performed additional research on the subject? It appears to me that the Meadows and Poyer books took Clawson's work at face value, and cited his work in their books. He stated that the Ithaca records had issues, and were incomplete, yet he was pretty straightforward in his statement of the last Ithaca pistol manufactured being serial number 2693613. I still don't think it would be a good first item for a collection, but I also don't believe we can completely dismiss it without very close inspection of the firearm.Ĭlawson certainly did his research, and his work was the first in-depth coverage of WWIII M1911A1 pistols. I want to offer up some other thoughts on this controversial M1911A1 pistol. I've put a lot of rounds through that pistol over the years.I may shoot it again tomorrow.ĭavid some reason, this subject kept me awake for a couple of hours last night, thinking about the possibilities. The frame has not been altered, but it has many competition upgrades that I made to it about 25 years ago. I still have it, and it was already reblued when I bought it. At least I thought it was an Ithaca for the first 15 years or so.Until I realized it was an Ithaca slide on a Remington Rand frame. No matter if it is legitimate, based on the published resources and manufacturing record references available, it would most likely be frowned upon by a future purchaser unless new information proved its provenance.Īn Ithaca M1911 was the first handgun I ever purchased, 31 years ago in Hawaii. This is probably a gun to avoid, particularly as a first M1911A1. He also states the assigned range for Ithaca went up to 2693613, as others have stated. I want to add that Clawson noted that Ithaca records were discovered in a government warehouse, and that 'many were missing or illegible due to poor quality microfilming.' That being said, he states with no apparent ambiguity that the last pistol manufactured was serial number 2660318.

Ithaca model 49 serial number lookup