[cowboy1964]

So all the firearms I've ever owned have had serial numbers of the form ABC123. That format means a total number of available serial numbers of 26*26*26*10*10*10 = 17,576,000 possible serial numbers. There are a whole hell of a lot more guns out there than that. Are serial numbers reused?

 

[MajorD]

You have never owned any older guns apparently. It wasn't until 1968 that companies started routine use of alphanumeric serial numbers. I didn't do the math but you can do aaa 0000000000 until forever.
No limit on how long the serial number is. And after the company gets tired of a letter prefix they can start a suffix instead. Endless possibilities. Smith and Wesson even put letters in the middle like 300k101

 

[captaintrips]

Just looked real quick. My glocks are ABC123, but my Walthers are ABC1234 and my Ruger is a bunch of numbers.

With 300 million plus guns just in this country they had to move away from just ABC123 a long time ago.

 

[bac1023]

Serial numbers were done a ton of different ways.

Trying to determine a total number of guns by looking at modern serial numbers on plastic guns is a total waste of time.

I can't even imagine someone thinking that was remotely possible. :dunno: :headscratch:

 

[Patchman]

Not to mention each manufacturer is considered part of their serial number (huh?). So for example, if you're checking a gun's serial number, you have to provide the gun's manufacturer. And probably model and caliber too.

 

[garya1961]

You have never owned any older guns apparently. It wasn't until 1968 that companies started routine use of alphanumeric serial numbers.

It wasn't until 1968 that they were required to put serial numbers on guns but companies have been putting serial numbers on guns since they started making guns. True a few didn't have serial numbers before 1968 but most did.

 

[cowboy1964]

Had Glock made more than 17,576,000 firearms? Have they always used ABC123 format? If the answer is yes to both then they have duplicate serial numbers.

 

[Cashgap]

Had Glock made more than 17,576,000 firearms? Have they always used ABC123 format? If the answer is yes to both then they have duplicate serial numbers.

They have used A###, AA####, AAA###, and now AAAA### and perhaps others.

I believe they have made more than 17,576,000, since their 2014 production was over one million guns.

Glock would not be permitted to duplicate a serial number in the United States.

Nothing but common sense would prohibit them from using, for example, BAMA123 on a Glock sold in the US and again on one sold in ROW.

 

[RenegadeGlocker]

Had Glock made more than 17,576,000 firearms? Have they always used ABC123 format? If the answer is yes to both then they have duplicate serial numbers.

Till recently US guns were ABC123US so that is 17M guns just for the US.

 

[N4LJ]

,

 

[banger]

Along with what others have said, I don't think you have factored in that many serial number reused.

Consider serial number 1234.... it may be used by Smith and Wesson on a series of "J frame" revolvers, again on "K frames" and again on auto 's.

The same number may appear in the Colt line up, or Ruger etc..

It is not a matter that each number is only used once by all manufacturers, and then forever laid aside.

 

[Scott3670]

Not to mention each manufacturer is considered part of their serial number (huh?). So for example, if you're checking a gun's serial number, you have to provide the gun's manufacturer. And probably model and caliber too.

Not sure where one goes to check a gun's serial number other than the manufacturer. Short of that, the only possibility I can think of is NCIC for whether a particular gun is stolen. There is no national database for gun serial numbers.

 

[Patchman]

Not sure where one goes to check a gun's serial number other than the manufacturer. Short of that, the only possibility I can think of is NCIC for whether a particular gun is stolen. There is no national database for gun serial numbers.

There would be a number of reasons a person would "check" a gun's serial number. For example, in a private sale, the seller or buyer may want a receipt that lists the gun (ie: Glock, serial # ABC123). Or a recently purchased (used) gun and the new owner went to the police to verify it's not a stolen item. Or a gun dealer using make and serial number for inventory control. Even a gunsmith should record customers' guns by make and serial number to prevent mix-up. Or list of guns for insurance purposes.

The point is, the gun's make and serial number are both part and parcel to identifying that particular gun.

 

[Wyoming]

Also sometime gun manufactures puts letters to code year made such as Browning did with their Superpose.

When Colt ran into a too big number for their Colt Single Action they went from SA per fix to SA sub fix.

Sort of like names and numbers for gun calibers. No rules

 

[RWBlue]

1. Every company can use the same Serial number.
2. Every company can use the same Serial number on a different model.
3. Serial numbers didn't happen on all guns in the USA until 1968 and I want to think that Russia didn't serialize their guns at all until 1980s or something like that.

 

[DJ Niner]

So all the firearms I've ever owned have had serial numbers of the form ABC123. That format means a total number of available serial numbers of 26*26*26*10*10*10 = 17,576,000 possible serial numbers. There are a whole hell of a lot more guns out there than that. Are serial numbers reused?

Not that it affects your point very much, but you might have to re-do your math. There are at least four letters that are not used in "normal production" Glock serial numbers: O, I, J, Q.

"O" can be confused with the numerical digit zero, so it's not used in serial numbers by many firearm manufacturers. Same for the letter "I", which can be confused with the number 1. Glock uses the letter "J" in special factory serial numbers, such as cutaway models. "Q" is also easy to misread as a zero or letter "O", but is also used in special factory serial numbers.

However, some of these letters HAVE been used in special-issue pistols, such as a police department that wants their department initials used as the serial number prefix, so you'll find an occasional "IPD###" or "OHP###" or similar serial numbers.

Browse through this Serial Number Research Project thread to see examples of letters not used, or special-use serial numbering:
http://www.glocktalk.com/threads/glock-serial-number-research-project-v4.1445829/

 

[DJ Niner]

To fully identify some pistols, you have to not only have the manufacturer, model, caliber, and serial number, you have to know where the production plant was located where it was made. For instance, Lugers made during WWII used the same serial number blocks at different production plants, so if you don't know the factory code, you can't really "identify" the pistol. I found out about this when a friend of mine was arrested for possessing a stolen pistol. We were in the military, and he had brought a military Luger that had been in his family for 40+ years back from leave, and registered it on base so he could keep it in base housing. The cops showed up at our workplace a few days later, and took him away in handcuffs to question him about a stolen pistol, as a Luger with the same serial number had popped up in a NCIC check of his registration form info.

Once I found out what was going on, I went and talked to our commander (who was a gun owner himself, and fairly gun-savvy), and asked him to look into it. He found a Luger collector that submitted a letter on the duplicate serial number problem with Lugers, and luckily, my buddy's family had an old certified form (insurance?) that demonstrated the pistol had been in their family since well before the pistol listed in NCIC had been stolen. A combination of these two factors got him released and his gun returned, but I've always remembered the circumstances, in case something similar ever happened again to someone I knew.

 

[boilergonzo]

I cannot imagine any modern manufacturer would be re-using serial numbers (it happened in the past, but for this market would be a royal pain!). They can change serial number format (change the order, add a letter or number, etc.) very easily.

17M (slightly less with the corrections for disqualified letters noted above) is a lot of guns, but eventually you run out of numbers. Not all Glock's were made with the same serial number format, so that is not an accurate count of guns in the wild.

For frame of reference using US Firearms Industry Survey (2013 and 2014 was most recent I could locate quickly), we see the following:

• There were 5.4M civilian pistol purchases in the U.S. (all brands) in 2013.
• There were a total of 4.44M pistols made in the US in 2013.
  
• For 2013 total manufacturing (including export): Ruger=1.1M pistols. Glock(Smyrna)=204,481. S&W=872,106. SIG(NH)=551,001, FN(SC)=110,279, Jimenez(NV)=60,416.
• In 2013, Austria imported a total of 932,117 handguns (and most here would probably agree it is primarily Glock, with some smaller percentage of Steyr). Smyrna was hitting its stride about then.
  
• From 1999 to 2010, the range of combined new /used imported firearms (all manufacturers, including handguns, rifles and shotguns, but specifically excluding military purchases) was between 1.4M (lowest, in 1999), and 3.6M (highest, in 2009). Glock is just a percentage of that 3.6M per year (some are rifles, some are shotguns, and some are other handgun manufacturers like H&K, FN, Taurus, etc.).

Glock will eventually have to shift from ABC123 to whatever else they need (ABCD1234, 1234ABCD, ABCDEFG, etc.), but once they do that, they are back to the first of a series, with the old serial numbers relegated to the history books. To fit onto the current metal tag, probably moving numbers to letters would be simplest. I don't know when it will happen, but it will, and it won't have an impact on much.