Gun Collectors Dream Auction #76 Gun Estate
Lot 1017:
Okay all my M1 Garand Collectors, bet you dont have one made by International Harvester in your collection! Overall in great pre-owned condition, Serial # 5174754 Very interesting story from the internet below: SA/IHC “Postage Stamp”: The second variant of M1 Garand receivers supplied by Springfield Armory with the nomenclature marking consisting of four even lines stamped on the receiver. Collectors have dubbed these the “Postage Stamp” type. The majority of these rifles were assembled with LMR barrels (generally dated late 1952 or early 1953). International Harvester’s Post-WWII M1 Garand Rifle HOW INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER BECAME A CHIEF SUPPLIER OF M1 GARAND RIFLES AFTER WWII. During World War II, the M1 Garand rifle proved its mettle on countless battlefields around the globe and was universally recognized as the premier general-issue service rifle of the war. Springfield Armory and Winchester manufactured over 4 million M1 rifles by 1945, and it was generally assumed that there would be an adequate supply of Garands to equip the post-war American military. However, this assumption was proven wrong when the North Koreans invaded South Korea in 1950. The pared-down American armed forces were ill prepared for another war. Obviously, one of the key weapons needed was the battle-proven M1 rifle. The Garands left over from WWII were refurbished and issued to troops deploying to Korea, but it was feared that existing supplies would be insufficient to meet the unexpected demand. Springfield Armory was ordered to get new M1 rifles back into production as soon as possible, but the lag time required to obtain the necessary machinery and manpower to accomplish this task proved more difficult than expected. The only viable solution was to acquire the additional rifles from civilian manufacturers. This was certainly not without precedent, as commercial manufacturers had supplied weaponry to the U.S. military almost from the founding of the republic. In order to augment Springfield Armory’s production, two civilian firms were selected to manufacture the new M1 rifles: the International Harvester Company (IHC) and Harrington & Richardson. On June 15, 1951, a contract was granted to IHC for 100,000 M1 Garand rifles to be manufactured at the firm’s Evansville, Indiana, plant, with production to start by December of 1952. The Evansville plant was constructed during WWII by the Republic Aviation Corporation to manufacture P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft. After the war, the plant was purchased by IHC for manufacturing various types of commercial products, including air conditioners, refrigeration units and farming equipment.
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