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Posted: 3/26/2007 6:26:56 AM EDT
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SP1 is # 0004 listed on GB # 68728863 Looks like black Bakelite furniture |
There was a thread here several weeks ago or so about this gun,,,,and guesses offered about why so many of the parts are not what we would expect,,,,perhaps that is what scottryan is referencing in his post. Anyways, the lower receiver is interesting for the serial number alone, but I doubt anyone will pay anything approaching $9000 for it. 
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Basically anything made between 100 and 1000 and maybe up to 1500 rolled off the line in the first year. We know this because these guns have all the old parts on them (cast front sight bases, first style ejection port cover, etc) and exhibit older manufacturing practices that were dropped in the 1965 to 1966 time frame. I don't know if 100 was the exact start of production, but I believe it was as these lower serial numbered guns (1 to 100) were given out to Colt employees. |
In TBRII author Bartocci shows a chart of Colt AR-15 production by years and ser.# range and it shows 1 SPI made in 1963. In 1964 he shows a ser.# range with maybe 1500? I forget how many. We could interpret this as the lone 1963 gun being a test piece or commercial prototype. I don't remember him providing any text about this. I did find it interesting when I noticed it on the charts he provides in the book. |
It is true that number 1 would could have been made in sequence and was really the first one made. However, you see such ones in the teen, 20s, and 30s always commanding big $$ by people who think they where one of the first ones. I personally know the guy who used to own serial number 15, and it had the later parts on it. |
My understanding was that this particular piece was aquired when Colt sold off the majority of its collection, and was considered the first one made. To be perfectly honest I was more interested in the suppressor collection and the SR-47 and that was where I spent the limited ammount of time the class I was taking was alloted in the museum. |
Single and double digits SP1’s date later then three digit SP1’s. Colt frequently runs serial numbers out of sequence as does IZHMASH and many other manufactures.
Mr Knight does have 00001, but that is a product of ArmaLite of Hollywood and has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.  |
Yes, it was a one off submitted for BATF approval. It was GX4968:  GX4968 was later "updated" at the factory. |
Yes, of course it was! And they even returned it when they were done. Mighty white of them. 
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That might be the one I was thinking of, but I really thought that the one I looked at was a Colt. |
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