Anyone have access to V. Bernardelli serial numbers. I will be looking at a 12 ga. SxS for a young friend. The gun came to the U.S. with the young mans Grandmother from Italy and he's trying to gather info. The serial # is 85000. I don't have the gun in hand yet.

Dennis

bernardelli@bernardelli.com

With kind regards,
Jani

Dennis, Bernardellis--like all Italian guns--also carry a date code. I thought it was available on the home page here, but apparently not. You can find it in the back of the Blue Book. Might be a link somewhere on line too. But I'm guessing the gun you'll be looking at will have the Roman numeral-style date code. Simply add the Roman numeral to 1944 and you have the date of production.

Isn't that funny. My Bernardelli double #70164 has all kinds of Italian proof marks but I can't see any Roman numerals... And as a former tarok/tarot player I know Roman numerals And yes, I do remember Roman numerals on other Italian guns.

With kind regards,
Jani

Italian date codes,

http://www.shotguns.se/html/italy.html

Roman numerals only until 1974, letter codes after.

OK, let's see. My Bernardelli is marked BC so it's from 2006. I didn't know it was so young.
Thanks.

With kind regards,
Jani

Thanks for the replies. I'll take a look at the gun tomorrow.

Dennis

I figured this one--having arrived here with the owner's grandmother--would likely be of the older, Roman numeral variety.

Off topic but funny at an interview with the First Lady,

Van Susteran, "What language is spoken in Slovenia?"

First Lady, looking irritated, "Slovenian."

Jani, its not that young, BC is 1993.

I would not have known that either. And I majored in foreign languages, and am pretty good on what's spoken where. I probably would have thought Serbo-Croatian, which was the majority language in what used to be Yugoslavia. And apparently is widely spoken in Slovenia as well.

When we got involved in Bosnia under Clinton, in the mid-90's, the military had a lot of Russian linguists but relatively few Serbo-Croatian linguists. Fortunately, S-C is quite close to Russian. So the Defense Language Institute created a special course to transition Russian linguists to S-C. The unofficial name for it was "Turbo Serbo".

You would think that the interviewer would find that out before hand without asking the First Lady.

She should have answered her in Italian, then switched to German, then switched to Ukrainian and all the rest of the languages she knows fluently and watch Van Susteran's head explode.

"Jani, its not that young, BC is 1993"

Thanks, that sounds more what I expected. I bought the gun second hand from Germany about a decade ago.

And speaking about the First Lady, I live not far away from her birthplace. And I speak Slovenian too

With kind regards,
Jani

Jani. that's great!!

I'll bet a lot of tourists visiting to see her home these days.

Van Susteran looked nervous during that interview and a little intimidated by the First Lady.

Back to the Bernardelli. The gun in question #85000 was made in 1965. Appears to be a side plated box lock with 27 1/2" barrels. 2 3/4" chambers and choked .028 and .039. Straight stock, splinter forend with sling swivels. Bright finish side plates. 75% engraving.

The gun was purchased in Italy and brought here by the young mans grandmother. Trying to determine the model now. If it were a US import of that era I would say a Gamecock Premier. But having been purchased in Italy I'm not sure.

With the exception of the two boxes of shells the young owner fired a couple weeks ago I would guess the gun was stored away upon arrival here and never used.

Dennis