Winchester Model 1900 serial number — why there isn’t one
The Winchester Model 1900 is a single-shot bolt-action boy's rifle produced from 1899 to 1902, with about 105,000 made.
- Produced:
- 1899–1902
- Action:
- bolt-action
The Model 1900 has no serial number
Winchester never numbered the Model 1900. Like its other low-priced single-shot .22s and utility shotguns, it left the factory with a model or caliber marking and patent dates on the barrel, but no serial. Federal law did not require serial numbers on rifles and shotguns until the Gun Control Act took effect in December 1968, and by then the Model 1900 had been out of production for years. A Model 1900 with no number is exactly as it left New Haven. Nothing has been removed.
About 105,000 were made between 1899 and 1902.
The Model 1900 was John Browning's design and Winchester's first bolt-action .22. The Model 1902 replaced it in June 1902, and the Model 1904 followed.
There is no record to search and no factory letter to order. The Cody Firearms Museum, which issues Winchester factory letters, works from the factory’s serial-number records, and it cannot document a gun that never had a number.
If your Model 1900 has a number on it
Numbers do turn up on these guns. Most were added after the gun left the factory: an owner’s identification number, a hardware store’s stock number, or an importer’s marking on a gun that traveled abroad and came back. Some are factory marks that are not serials, such as inspector or fitter stamps and, on several models, a two-digit year stamp hidden under the barrel. Patent dates on the barrel are mistaken for a serial number too. None of these can be looked up in any record.
How to date a Model 1900 without a serial number
Winchester changed the Model 1900 over its run, and the published references date some of those changes. Together they bracket when a particular gun was made:
- The earliest rifles carry only the Winchester address and patent marking with “22 SHORT LONG” and no model name. Later barrels add “MODEL 1900 / 22 SHORT & LONG”. The references do not put a date on the changeover.
- Winchester began applying its oval WP proof mark to .22 rimfire models in 1908, after Model 1900 production had ended. A Model 1900 with a WP proof was reworked or rebarrelled later.
- The stock has no fitted buttplate. That is original, not a missing part.
Feature dating gives a window of years, not a date. Parts were used up across changeovers, so a gun can show an older feature later than the reference year.