I'm trying to figure out the approx date of manufacture

[justaguy]

Hello, group.

My father gave me a pistol during my Thanksgiving visit this week.  He's owned it since the 70's, I believe.  Any information you could provide would be welcomed.

It has a tangent rear sight and a slotted backstrap.  I can provide more images if necessary.

Thank you.

Attachments:

[ToddSig]

Nice gift from your father for Thanksgiving. Our member TNorris is an excellent source on early FN pistols and early serial numbers. He should be along shortly and comment.

Welcome to the forum.

[tnorris]

Thanks ToddSig!

Indeed a wonderful gift from your father, Justaguy!

It looks like it could be a pre-war pistol. Tangent sights, slotted grip, lots of extra proof markings and its general older condition. The letter/mark *E was used by Controller of Proof Jamarte Auguste from 1925-1959 and later used by a different inspector from 1955-present. I don't see the easier to decipher post-war date codes.

The first pistols had a round barrel cam slot and changed to a squared cam slot around sr#36,000 near the end of the pre-war 1930s.

I'm wondering what your barrel looks like in profile.
Is there a serial number on the barrel?
Are the tangent sights marked for 1000 meters of 500 meters?
Can that *E Controller of Proof mark also be found on the barrel?

The mark "PH" under a crown was used on High Powers from 1935-1940.
The "H" in a circle may be an additional inspector mark used from 1931-early 1940.


Send more pictures... good detail closeups of different markings especially on the trigger guard, sights, profile of and markings on the barrel, full profile of both sides, the tangent sight from above. I might hope to find a lowercase letter, probably in cursive from 'n to u' to indicate the year a part was inspected. I don't see these in pictures of pre-war pistols in the same places as on post-war pistols. If such a code is present it could be faint or upside down and possibly surrounded by a partial box as were the post-war date codes. It may be on the hammer, the underside of the slide, under the grip panels...

As usual, I'm just making a guess from piecing together info from the works of others... I hope I'm learning more each time, with the assistance of others who may see something different. What a fun game and interesting bit of history this is!

Tim

[justaguy]

Thank you for the warm welcome and the great info.  

I see I can only attach 3 images per post, so please bear with me as I upload some pics.

If pics of better quality are needed, please let me know.

Thanks again!

[justaguy]

Barrel:



There also may be a "c" on the barrel, but it might just be corrosion.

[justaguy]

Thanks again!

[tnorris]

Looking at photos with info presumed to be correct I saw these two which are similar to your pistol:

Shipped in April 1940: Officers Pistol #40033 / Type 2 Tangent Sights / No Slot
*E, square "C"

Mfg Dec 24, 1938: #21631 issued to a machine-gunner / Type 1 Tangent Sights / Slot
*E, circle "r"(?)(1939???)
[this pistol was stashed in a chicken coop by machine-gunner Louis DeMeester before his capture by the Germans and retrieved after he was liberated from a forced labor camp by the Red Army]

Your barrel has the square cam slot which first appeared in 1938 (?) and was used concurrently with the round cam slot barrels until those were all used up. There is no recorded date or serial number for the change, which was not a clean change because the two types were sort of all mixed together in wicker parts baskets. So, the new design became available "around sr#36,000" and "sometime in 1938". Once issued I don't think they swapped out the older design for the newer one. FN later used the round design for Alloy Frame pistols in the 1980s... and it may be a better/stronger design.

Until the mid 1950s, serial numbers were rarely a good way to determine the born on date of a High power. Numbers were used and reused for different contracts and may have been duplicated in different years. Accurate records were not kept.

Two types of 500 meter Tangent Sights were used concurrently. Type 1 (yours) was for pistols fitted with slots for the shoulder stock and Type 2 was for pistols without the shoulder stock. On the Type 2 the scale uses the entire sight length and the slide is milled differently. In 1938 a fixed sight model was also produced.

I think you have a pre-war High Power made between early 1939 and early 1940. One can only imagine where it had been and what it had seen in it's early years. I could imagine is was a war souvenir before your father acquired it. Does your father remember any details about or stories from its previous owner?

The details here are from the work of R. Blake Stevens and Anthony Vanderlinden, whose books every High Power enthusiast should own... along with the works of Stephen Camp. I hope that anyone with additional or differing thoughts will jump in... info about early High Powers is a bit fuzzy.

Tim

[tnorris]

... I can't make out the character on the end of the left side of the slide in your first photo. Pre-war, this was an acceptance mark which could be seen when the pistols were in shipping crates. During the war the Germans put their acceptance mark (Waffenmacht)on the front of the slide below the barrel. My guess is that it is a circle "H" to match the barrel, slide and left side of the frame.

[justaguy]

Thank you so much for the information!  I very much appreciate it.

My father purchased it at a pawn shop many moons ago, so no information came with it -- unfortunately! 

Once again, thank you so much.  I will pass on your knowledge of the pistol to my father.  It will make him very happy to know that I did a bit of research on it.

[justaguy]

Nov 27, 2020 19:31:03 GMT -5 tnorris said:

... I can't make out the character on the end of the left side of the slide in your first photo. Pre-war, this was an acceptance mark which could be seen when the pistols were in shipping crates. During the war the Germans put their acceptance mark (Waffenmacht)on the front of the slide below the barrel. My guess is that it is a circle "H" to match the barrel, slide and left side of the frame.

It is a circle H.  Thank you for asking.

[tnorris]

Nov 27, 2020 19:34:02 GMT -5 justaguy said:

Thank you so much for the information!  I very much appreciate it.

My father purchased it at a pawn shop many moons ago, so no information came with it -- unfortunately! 

Once again, thank you so much.  I will pass on your knowledge of the pistol to my father.  It will make him very happy to know that I did a bit of research on it.

Cool. Glad to be helpful.

What will you do with this pistol? Had your father ever used it?

I have a 1943 High Power in pretty good shape. It's been an accurate shooter the couple times I've used it at the range. I picked it up at a local shop a couple summers ago when a woman had brought in her elderly fathers gun collection. There were some parts I needed to replace (sear spring, guide rod and some other springs) before I felt it could could safely safely be used. I don't think it had been used since the end of the war. It now works as well as it did in 1943... odd to imagine where it must have been.

Tim

[justaguy]

Nov 27, 2020 20:08:45 GMT -5 tnorris said:

Nov 27, 2020 19:34:02 GMT -5 justaguy said:

Thank you so much for the information!  I very much appreciate it.

My father purchased it at a pawn shop many moons ago, so no information came with it -- unfortunately! 

Once again, thank you so much.  I will pass on your knowledge of the pistol to my father.  It will make him very happy to know that I did a bit of research on it.

Cool. Glad to be helpful.

What will you do with this pistol? Had your father ever used it?

I have a 1943 High Power in pretty good shape. It's been an accurate shooter the couple times I've used it at the range. I picked it up at a local shop a couple summers ago when a woman had brought in her elderly fathers gun collection. There were some parts I needed to replace (sear spring, guide rod and some other springs) before I felt it could could safely safely be used. I don't think it had been used since the end of the war. It now works as well as it did in 1943... odd to imagine where it must have been.

Tim

I plan on shooting it.  I have a 1911 manufactured in 1915 that is solid as a rock.  I actually used it in a few IDPA competitions several years ago. 


I found out the hard way that some people get mad when you shoot "vintage" pistols.  Each to their own.

[tnorris]

Consider changing all of the springs, especially the sear spring. Check for hammer follow and a light trigger pull in dry fire. I used a spare sear spring from an RDIH SFS kit in mine. It works great!

The original recoil spring guide rod contains a spring which wears out and cannot be replaced. You should probably treat it as a museum piece. My 1943 works fine with a modern production guide rod.

A $90 extractor from "Jack First Gun Parts" dropped into my 1943. Used extractors I have purchased have been very well used and a "new production" version from Numrich recently broke in the middle after a very low round count for another forum user. It's possible the original is fine and will last forever.

I've set all of my replaced parts aside for posterity.

Tell us how she shoots after you get out with her!

Tim

[justaguy]

Will do. Thanks again for the help and the information. I'm glad I found this forum.

[26thz]

Thanks for the great information. I purchased a very similar gun with very similar markings. This has been a great help.