Home / Why two years? / There is nothing left to check

The table is a reconstruction because the records are gone

There is nothing left to check

This is the cause with no remedy, and it is the one where saying so is worth more than any answer. When the primary record does not exist, a table is a secondary source by definition, and it inherits the reliability of whoever compiled it.

A real case

From the record

The corpus states it plainly from a Walther owner’s side: "It’s very difficult to match serial numbers to years with pre war guns, a lot of the records were destroyed during the war."

What actually produces the discrepancy

The destruction is documented and specific elsewhere: Mauser’s records at Oberndorf were destroyed on the order of the French army commander after 1945, and Walther’s factory was destroyed in the war — the company’s own account has it that only a thin folder of drawings and patent rights survived. Remington’s production records were lost outright, to the point that the long-standing official answer was that there are no Remington production records at all.

What to watch for

A secondary table can be excellent — the Remington Society has been reconstructing from surviving fragments for decades — but it is a different class of evidence from a factory ledger, and it should be read as one. The records pages on this site say which makers are in which position.

What to do about it

Working with this cause
  • Check whether the primary record exists before trusting any year. The records pages answer that per maker.
  • Where it does not exist, date the firearm from what is on it: proof marks, barrel codes, patent dates, the maker’s marking and address.
  • Treat an uncited table as an opinion. Where a table is a reconstruction, the compiler’s name is the reliability rating.
  • Stop looking for the answer that does not exist. "The records were destroyed" is a finding, and it is the honest end of the search.

Sources for this page: Walther Forums — "Walther PP/PPK Serial Numbers and Proof-firing", a specialist explanation of why the serial cannot be read as a date · Remington Society of America — manufacture dates, serial numbers by date, and barrel date codes · National Rifle Association museum — on firearms that are hard to identify or value.

Other reasons two sources disagree

The table and the gun disagreeThe published table is known to be impreciseThe maker’s own lookup returns two yearsThe numbers are not in the order you assumeThe number on the gun is not the original one
The lookup shows its working

Every result names the chart it came from, the threshold it rests on, and — where the published table is documented as imprecise — says so on the result itself rather than returning a bare year.

Open the serial number lookup All the causes

Compiled and sources last checked 2026-10-14. This page explains a documented discrepancy; it does not date your firearm.