Available from Morphys here:
https://auctions.morphyauctions.com/_C__OUTSTANDING_SINGER_MODEL_1911A1__45_ACP_SEMI_A-LOT660708.aspx
The Singer Manufacturing Company, best known for its iconic sewing machines, received an Educational Contract to product 500 M1911A1 pistols on April 17, 1940. They set up production for the gun, producing every part except the grip panels in-house. The 500 pistols were delivered in December 1941, with a serial number range of S800001 – S800500. They were probably the best quality 1911s made during the war, with a fine polish and DuLite bluing. A followup contract for 15,000 guns was written, but almost immediately cancelled when it was realized that Singer already had higher-priority contracts for artillery directors and not enough manufacturing capacity to execute both.
The tooling produced for these pistols was transferred to Remington-rand and eventually used by the Ithaca company to make their 1911s. The 500 Singer 1911s were issued out to the military and used through the war, making them extremely rare today, especially in excellent condition like this one.
At about two minutes in, you can see that the polish job is so fine that it reflects the red light on Mr. M’s video camera. Would like to hear more about DuLite blueing.
Does anyone have any records of the units that were issued Singer 1911’s? I served as a small arms repairman in the late 1960’s and we served the 4th Armored Division which was part of the 7th Army. During my two years there, as I recall, we worked on at least four of them.
Great video, please continue your fine work.
LDC,
Very observant. I had to go back and rewatch the video expecting to see a faint red spot. All of a sudden, there it was, bold as can be…. I was paying more attention to the fit and finish to notice. Good job.
Roughly 30 years ago, I remember a tale of some bright fellow committing armed robbery (possibly in Canada) with some old gun that had been in the family for quite some time. Supposedly he was sort of successful and caught.
The comic/tragic part comes into play in that Mr Desperate allegedly used a Singer .45 as the weapon of convenience and it was slated for destruction once its role as evidence was completed. The value of the gun at the time was many times the ‘earnings’ of the robbery.
Usenet era tale if I recall and you should provide your own salt block.
There’s a story I heard from a gunsmith I know. The way he told it, one of the rarer Parker shotguns was stolen by some eedjit type, who then chose to cut it down into a sawed-off shotgun for use as an armed robber.
In the course of his career as an armed robber, he made something like two grand, killed a clerk with the shotgun, and got injured himself when his botched sawing operation resulted in one of the barrels blowing up when he tried to fire it at another victim.
The shotgun itself, that he’d carved up? Worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000.00 at the time this happened. Unknown what that rare variation on a Parker would be going for today… This went down in the mid-1970s, and I understand that the shotgun in question had been his grandfather’s pride and joy before eedjit ripped it off out of his grandmother’s closet.
Gunsmith in question had been armorer and property clerk for a mid-sized department in the Midwest, so I’m reasonably sure he knew whereof he spoke.
There’s a barrel of these packed new in cosmoline in the same giant warehouse as the Lost Ark.
Does anyone have any records of the units that were issued Singer 1911’s? I served as a small arms repairman in the late 1960’s and we served the 4th Armored Division which was part of the 7th Army. During my two years there, as I recall, we worked on at least four of them.
Great video, please continue your fine work.
it’s interesting that the Singer 1911 production kit went to Remington-Rand and then Ithaca, because most aficionados of the 1911 consider the Remington and Ithaca examples to be the best of the WW2 wartime production.
Perhaps Singer “tweaked” the machinery just a bit more than most firms, resulting in a better final product?
clear ether
eon
Could be, or perhaps the machinists who had run the line at singer were sent along to train the new crew and passed some tips along
500 issued mainly to the USAAF.
But to hear the old timers at the gun counter; everyone in the 101st had one but lost it in a poker game. Or traded it for Goring’s personal Luger.
Strangely enough, Goering’s favourite pistol was a .38 Smith & Wesson, which he bought privately before the war.
Of course it was.He flogged off a few hundred thousand personal Lugers of his to the Allies to keep the Luftwaffe in parachutes and av-gas
Mom said she was gonna scrap gramma’s old Singer out in the garage. I’m praying she didn’t mean this kind
Does Ian sell the shirt he’s wearing in this video anywhere? The Carhartt with the FW logo goes incredibly hard
I used to, but it’s been many years.
Gm
Maybe that shirt in the video was sewn on singer machine :-))
How ubercool would it be that they used some of the parts on sewing machines afterwards and/or vice versa.
No, dont even try to start the old sewing machines inc. guy bringing parts home for his big ol’ wife story…
‘They shall morph their gats into sewing machines…’ Book of Isaiah, New Really Revised Version
Brilliant !!