08-09-2017, 04:33 PM | ||
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. Welcome to the board ! I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad/sad news. IMO, your 12ga A-5 apparently has an altered serial number (illegal to buy/sell/possess under US Federal Law, barring an exemption letter from BATF). To wit: AFAIK When Browning stopped serializing 12ga A5's with numbers only in 1954, the last SN was 447750 - nowhere near 6,360,676. Then, Browning stamped one of 2 SN prefixes on 12ga guns, 'H' & 'M' for standardweight guns (depending upon year), or 'L' & 'G' for Lightweight guns (also depending upon year). Starting in 1958, 12ga gun's SN's were date coded with a numeral, then a letter, prefixes - as in (1958) 8M (standardweight) or 8G (Lightweight), 9M/9G, 0M/0G, 1M/1G, etc, etc until 1970, when Standardweight 12ga's were discontinued, but continuing with Lightweights to 76G in 1976. When Browning switched all A5 production to Japan/Miroku in 1976, SN's were also letter-coded, but a little differently than Belgian production. Dis-allowing for the added '63', your 12ga A5, SN 60676, dates to 1923. . |