Factory Records - HI STANDARD



High Standard Factory Records

Around 1996?? I acquired a duplicate copy of the BATF microfilm copy of the records that BATF picked up at High Standard after the Connecticut factory closed in 1984.To me this was an exciting prospect for researching the company’s history. Before long I discovered that several other people had copies of the High Standard records microfilm.

At that time I knew of 3 people besides myself that had copies, Alan Aronstein at High Standard Houston, HSCA member John Currie and HSCA member Jim Spacek.

John, Jim and I all started researching these records and Jim was the first to release significant data when he published his 1998 book “Hi-Standard Pistols & Revolvers 1951-1984”. In this book Jim provided serial numbers vs. date shipped tables for the pistols, The 1972 commemorative pistols, the 1980 commemorative pistols, the Automag pistols sold by High Standard, Police style revolvers (sentinel family), the Dan Wesson manufactured Sentinel MK II and MK III revolvers, and the Western style revolvers,

The pistol table was a great improvement in accuracy over the similar table in Tom Dance’s book and the revolver data was new.

John Currie took another approach by hiring the counting the number of entries for each of the catalog numbers for the Pistols, revolvers and derringers. These counts will allow the relative rarity of the various models to be determined to a reasonable degree of accuracy. Also in preparation for publishing his book, John traveled around and interviewed several former employees of the Connecticut High Standard Company

I too have created serial number vs. date shipped tables for the pistols, derringers, revolvers and am presently trying to improve the .22 rifles and shotguns. My versions of the charts first appeared in the members section of the original HSCA website and at that time the revolvers and rifles tables were still in preliminary form. My version of the pistols table is presently published in the Blue Book of Gun Values and in the Standard Catalog of Firearms. I provided the Blue Book with my improved derringer and revolver tables but they did not get published in the 2007 edition. I am still working on the rifle and shotgun table. The rifles and shotguns used several different serial number serial and at one time the rifles and shotguns utilized the same series like the handguns did for many years.

Another approach to data presentation that I have taken is the effort to find the lowest and highest serial number for each catalog number and the earliest and latest date for each catalog number. One problem along this avenue is the fact that High Standard did not ship in serial number order and so the lowest serial number for a catalog number is not always the earliest to ship and the highest serial number for a catalog number is not always the latest of a particular catalog number to ship. This effort is ongoing and I have had to make some corrections as I discover data that contradicts my published data. I started out by searching the records around the dates thought to be appropriate based on catalog and price list appearances. However, this has proven to not always be a good approach. There are flyer serial numbers on the low and high sides of the real production serial number range.

The BATF microfilm records for High Standard consist of 24 rolls of 16mm film. These carry BATF roll numbers from 31226 through 31249. The first 5 rolls are mostly the serial numbers and the rest are mostly images of invoices. The invoices actually start on roll 5 with and are only part of the invoices beginning with a few in May 1965 and a lot in may 1966. It appears the invoices are pretty complete beginning in January 1967. The invoices continue until rolls 31248 and 31249 where there are a number of re-filmed serial number records and invoice records because of an unacceptable number of omitted pages during the original filming. There are a number of frames where you can see a page sticking out from behind the top page as if the pages stuck together. And in come cases the following page in no where to be found.

I would estimate that there are 8500 frames per roll and over 200,000 frames over all. The early records are double sided and later ones have notes and additional shipping information on the back.

Over the 52 years represented by these records there were several different formats used for both the data included and the pages themselves. The earliest books were tall bound books with 300 pages each. The pages pad printed lines and usually list 34 serial numbers per page. There are also some other bound books with 180 pages and 30 records per page. These smaller books are not pistol records and are different serial number ranges. It might be possible that these are serial number logs for shotguns.

The early records pose some challenges in researching the guns. First the pages were photographed in a manner that the front and back of the pages were in the same frame. This was probably accomplished with mirrors and or prisms. Unfortunately the images of the backs of the pages are not as well illuminated and not as clear as the images of the front which makes the backs especially difficult to read sometimes. Second there is the handwriting problem. Some of the entry clerks had beautiful handwriting and some did not.

Hartford ss, several pages beginning with page 185 and continuing through page 232 in book __ serial numbers 11 through 1,626,

Hartford SA several pages beginning with page 299 in book __ serial numbers xxx through x,xxx

model c several pages beginning with page __ in book __ serial numbers xxx through x,xxx

models A & D several pages beginning with page __ in book __ serial numbers 500 (open) through x,xxx

G .380 pages

239,306 high Hand written in bound book

241,800 243,802 (3/16/1948) front page check back page 250,005 but

Data available serial number model letter(s) Destination ship date There are open records in the data with this format. This is a line with a serial number and no other data. Perhaps the data can be found in one of the later data systems used as a sort of catch-up record.

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Exhibit X. Sample page of early bound book format..

239,306 high Hand written in bound book

241,800 243,802 (3/16/1948) front page check back page 250,005 but

After the war, the hand written logs continued until about __ This overlapped the serial number range for a new format which was a print out of punched cards like the old IBM unit record system. There were 57 entries per page in unit record format and although legibility was greatly improved for the most part but there are a number of pages where it appears the printer ribbon was spent. Another problem was that the records are not always in serial number order. For those pistols that remained in inventory beyond when the printout was created, they are listed later at the beginning of another printout where the oldest, There is no guide as to when or where in the records there catch-up pages appear. There are also a few cases of where it appears that some cards were placed out of order after going through the card sorter – at least that is the only explanation that I have thought of that makes sense to me. With this format, there are no open records the with a serial number and no data. The printout simply prints the data fro the next available

Data available Serial number, catalog number, date shipped, account number and invoice number. Sometimes one or more data fields are not available or are incomplete

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Exhibit X. Sample page of unit records format.

The unit record data had a transition period during which records are found in both formats so researching a serial number may require looking for the serial number in the records of both record keeping formats. The unit record ended about March 1956 at about serial number 518,991 and the new system began to phase in about March 1956 at about serial number 510,000

Exhibit X. Sample page of 100 per page format.

The 100 per page format continued until 2,348,453. 2,348,453 through 2,349,999 are open records in the 100 per page format and beginning with 2,450,001 the records are 50 per page. 2,450,000 is an open record, the first number in the 50 per page format. 2,450,001 went to assembly 11/7/1972

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Exhibit X. Sample page of early 50 per page format.

The next change in format was back to hand written in two columns of 50 for 100 per page. The page forms are preprinted and are punched for a three ring binder. This change phased in at about 510,000 Old unit record had the separate serial number series for the early Sentinel family including the Sears Model 88

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Exhibit X. Sample page of early 50 per page format.

Exhibit X. Sample page invoices

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INVOICES

Shotguns??

Book 1 S/N 1 ~ Jan 1940 -TO ~ S/N 5,444 October 1941 ??? 180 page books

Book 2 S/N 5445 ~ Jan 19xx - TO ~ S/N x,xxx October 19xx

Book 3 S/N 5,275 ~ Jan 19xx - TO ~ S/N 10,599 October 19xx

Book 4 S/N 10,600 ~ Jan 19xx - TO ~ S/N 13,904 October 1

Book 5 S/N 5,311 ~ Jan 19xx - TO ~ S/N 10,560 October 19xx

Book 6 S/N 5,041 ~ Jan 19xx - TO ~ S/N 9,679 October 19xx

For better or worse, the records with all their flaws are the best we have

incomplete

Sample pages get a back page from Indianapolis library printer?

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Beginning of film 13 pages are housekeeping and an index

Original

Unit record beginning about with overlap

100/page beginning about

2,348,453 through 2,349,999 are open records and beginning with 2,450,001 the records are 50 per page. Earlier records were 100 per page. 2,450,001 went to assembly 11/7/1972 50/page beginning about

Invoice

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Problems

Open records or partly open records

Bad penmanship.

Damaged pages Tears tape

Pages out of place

Poor copies of the back

Pages are mostly in serial number order but not in order

Refilms

Unit record not in order

Invoices are not in numerical order or date shipped order but are grouped approximately by month and year Some are listed as missing in eh BATF index sheets

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