hi all, I recently picked up this 37 and was trying to find some more info, based on the serial number it's a 1968, the barrel is marked full and based on research and measurements it's a factory full choke 20" barrel not a hack job. I figure it was a police or prison shotgun but there are no department marking on it. any info to help value and learn about these old scatterguns would be much appreciated.

@Prknives

Nice Ithaca. Always enjoy seeing these classics. Mine is a late 60s build too, but as far as I can tell is just a stock civilian model.

Could you show the opposite side of the receiver? I'm curious if Ithaca engraved the outdoor scene on police issue shotguns?

I’m not saying this is the gospel.
But it has been to my findings that all police and riot style Ithaca that are factory made, came with CYL barrels.
Saying that, It’s possible the gun went back to Ithaca for some reason and could of been rebarreled and what ever was in stock was modified and placed on the gun.
Since the pantene of the parkeriizing matches throughout the gun that is a good sign. However someone else besides Ithaca could of done that.
Also I have seen barrels with no choke markings at all from Ithaca.
With the price of these guns in the $1000 range now, I have a feeling that counterfeits are going to start showing up.

Ithaca made M37 "Riot" guns with Full chokes, supposedly to sell to jails/prisons. Is it indeed a Full choke, or a barrel that was cut down from Full and is now CYL bore? They also made police/riot guns with 20-inch SKT bore barrels (which makes no sense to me as SKT is so close to CYL).

I’d measure the diameter of the muzzle.  I have a Sportsman 12 modified by Sage for a State Police Tactical team.  The barrel is marked full but the barrel is 18” or 20” (can’t remember for sure) but the diameter of the muzzle is the size of cylinder bore.   You can get the muzzle diameter on line for the different 12 gauge chokes.    Not all Police Shotguns were the Police/Military models.  Many small PD’s used commercial sporting shotguns.


Found this info but can’t verify if it is accurate.  I have a full choke 30” barrel from a Remington 870 I can measure plus a cylinder bore from a 20” slug barrel with rifle sights and my cut down Sportsman 12 full choke.

12 gauge fixed full choke .685”
12 gauge fixed modified .705”
12 gauge fixed improved cylinder .716”
12 gauge fixed cylinder .725”

I’ve got one also. It’s locked away and I can’t get to it right now, wife is sleeping.  Model 37 DS Police Special, made in 68 also.  It’s not a slam fire unfortunately.  Yours looks like the stock has been varnished to a high gloss. Mine has the wildlife scene on the parkerized receiver and a RAYBAR front sight that I recently replaced with a new RAYBAR purchased from Ithaca directly, made a big difference.

I’ll look tomorrow and see what mine says on the barrel.

I just checked on my barrel, and it is not stamped with anything so that doesn’t help much.

I measured my Sage Dynamics modified Sportsman 12 barrel.  The barrel is marked full and has a vent rib.  The barrel was cut to 18.5” and the muzzle measures .730”.

My 12 gauge Remington slugger barrel is 20” long and muzzle measures .725” but is not marked cyl that I can see.

My memory isn’t that good as my other barrel for my 870 is a 28” long modified choke and at the muzzle end measures .705”.


Here is a picture of my old Police Shotgun modified by Sage from a Sportsman 12 (cheap 1100).   This shotgun has accounted for a lot of varmints.

These are my lovely (to me) and long after sought after Ithaca's that I hunted down for 5 years previously after shooting a couple at my local club where I fell in love with their JMB design; of bottom loading/bottom ejection operation of each feature... JMB nailed it not just on this platform but so many others IMO...

Plus they look sexy which never hurts, Bada-Bing!

That top one is absolutely beautiful!

Mine came brand new right out of the box with a 20” parkerized full choke barrel .