About · how the site works

About GunSerials

GunSerials helps you estimate a gun’s age from its model and serial number. We bring published records together, name each source, and show when the sources give different dates for the same number.

How the site works

Our lookup tables draw on the factory ledgers at Cody, George Madis’s tables, and manufacturers’ own lists . We check for errors when copying the figures and name the source beside each table. When dates differ, we show the available answers and explain the evidence behind them. For some models, we also compare the tables with dates reported in factory letters and show how often they match.

A table gives an estimate for a group of serial numbers. Gaps in the records, exceptions to the usual number order, and later estimates can affect the answer. Also, a gun could be finished or shipped well after its serial number was stamped. A factory letter can provide more detail if records for that gun survive.

What this site is not

GunSerials is independently owned. Winchester Repeating Arms, Olin Corporation, manufacturers, museums, and auction companies do not run or endorse this site. Our price summaries use public auction results. They are comparisons, not an appraisal of your gun.

The records can be incomplete, and we can make mistakes. A lookup does not prove a gun’s age, originality, value, or legal status. When the answer affects a purchase or legal decision, check the original records where available and get advice suited to that decision.

Use of this site’s data

You may use what you find here for your own reference. Look up your guns, print record sheets, keep them with the guns, and show them to a dealer, an insurer, or a buyer. You may quote a figure from this site if you say it came from GunSerials and link to the page.

Please do not copy the tables. The serial number tables and the price tables on this site may not be copied, scraped, or republished as a whole or in bulk, in print, in a file, or on another website, without written permission from hello@gunserials.com. That includes feeding them to a database or a lookup tool of your own.

The figures come from other people’s work. Our serial number dates draw on the factory records held by the Cody Firearms Museum, on George Madis’s published tables, on lists issued by Winchester, and on the other references named beside each table. Our price figures are calculated from results that Rock Island Auction Company, Morphy Auctions, Poulin Auctions, Redding Auction Services, and Amoskeag Auction Company publish after their auctions. Those people and companies keep their rights in their own work. This site owns only the way the figures are gathered, checked, and presented.

The data comes as it is. We prepare it with care, we name our sources, and we correct errors when readers point them out. Even so, the records have gaps and we can make mistakes. Nothing here is an appraisal, a legal opinion, or a promise about any particular gun. The section called “What this site is not,” above, says more.

These terms apply to the site and to anything printed from it, including the Gun Record Sheet.

Corrections and contact

Found an error? Write to hello@gunserials.com with the model, serial number or range, and a link or book reference that supports the correction. Please include the data version shown at the bottom of the page so we can check the same figures you saw.

The same address works for anything else — a model you’d like added, a record you think we’ve misread, or a photograph of a serial location you’re willing to license.