A friend has this gun by Little of Yeovil bearing 1925 to 1954 Birmingham Proof marks.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/en3Ui8J.png?1[/img]


The table of Birmingham date stamps in Nigel Brown Volume 2 runs from 1921 (A) to 1942 (W) but restarts in 1950 at AB going on to ZB in 1974.

I suspect the M 948 in a circle is the date stamp for 1948 with M representing 1,000, but can anyone confirm?

I'll post the image directly. If you click on the BB Code box next from last at the bottom, it'll give a code that will create an image on boards. This is an interesting line of inquiry. The "M948" certainly seems logical for 1948 - i.e. MCMXXXXVIII or MDCCCCXXXXVIII or MCMIIL.

Thank you Gene. That is most helpful.

Normally when I post a picture from Imgur it appears as such, but this time despite a number of attempts it did not.

In the June 1981 issue of GUNS REVIEW an article written by Udo E. Troster titled" BRITIAN'S SECRET PROOF MARKS" where there is a full page written about the Birmingham "private view marks" in the 4th paragraph quote:

"The Birmingham Proof Master Colonel Playfair died in 1941 and the marking system seems to have fallen into disuse until the present Proof Master, R.P. Lees, was appointed. He modified the old mark and reintroduced it with effect from 1 January 1950.......The letter code used for 1950 was A".

I was thinking the 948 was designating Sept/1948.
I don't think anyone at the time or for the next 100yrs would think by looking at the gun that it was proofed in 2048 instead of 1948.

The other Birmingham Proof Date Codes only used a Letter to designate the yr. Nothing to tell you it was 19xx or 20xx.
The style of the Birmingham Proof Date Code used will tell you what yrs it was in use/ under what Proof Law in effect at the time.
The yrs the code lapsed in general use was 42 to 49. No real need to tell anyone it was '19' 42 to '19' 49.

The M ?,,,,maybe a Proof Inspector/Examiner like on the other Birmingham Proof Date Code marks.

Well actually "M" = 1000. 1000 + 948 = 1948. But who knows. It's an interesting mystery.

The grade of inspector on the previous and later systems was designated by 1 and 2.

With only one example it can only be a theory.

Not many guns were produced immediately after World War 2, there being strict controls on supplies of raw materials. This gun could have been one started Pre-war and left unfinished until things calmed down.

I am hoping that of our members might have, or remembers seeing , a similar stamp (M 947 or M 949) accompanied by a lack of the usual date stamp. That would be fairly conclusive.

Look on vintage gun website and you will find a similar proof mark - although prefix is L , not M - which rather knocks the suggestion M = 1,000.

Interesting. Not been able to find it as yet.

Any chance of an image please?

Hi, on Diggory Haddoke's vintage gun journal website, he has an article on Birmingham proof marks covering the period in question. It is suggested that the mark refers to a proof certificate issued at the time of proof, maybe a cert number and not a date as such? But the date should be on the certificate. Birmingham might have records/copies?

Thank you Wootang, found it now. Diggory reads the mark as K 176 although it looks to me as more like K L36.

I am familiar with certificates of unprovability, issued in the past but I believe now fallen out of favour, and I have seen certificates of proof when a collector’s item has been proved with “minimum marks”.

I have not seen British Proof Certificates otherwise but I am sure Diggory must be right given his wealth of experience.

From the absence of a date stamp the gun he shows again appears to date between 1943 and 1949, but whilst 948 fitted the intervening years 176 or 76 clearly does not.

So not a date stamp then.