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Early Colt AR-15 questions

jakelin
I have a Colt AR-15 with a four digit serial# (3849). When was it made? The gun has a three prong flash hider, no butt trap, a moveable swivel on the buttstock and the magazine is marked "Armalite Patent pending".
It is near mint and appears unfired. How much is average current value?

JAK
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Comments

3 comments

Date Votes
  • mark christian
    Probably made in around 1965 and should be marked: COLT'S PATENT FIREARMS CO. HARTFORD, CONN. USA. The sling swivels may or may not be plastic coated, it may or may not have the early heavy type large head firing pin, and probably has only 5/8 of an inch milled off of what is otherwise an M16 bolt assembly (although there was no actual M16 in 1965). The moveable rear swivel is correct for your vintage. Do you have the box and the papers?

    Mark T. Christian
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  • lanlesnee
    In 1965 they started with SP02501 and in 1966 they started with SP05600. That would put it somewhere in the middle of summer in 1965.
    A friend of mine had one he brought in 68-70, unfired with box and paper work and he wanted $2200. Could kick myself for not getting it.
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  • jakelin
    Thank you gentlemen for the reponses.
    Unfortunately, I don't have the box and papers, etc. The piece came to me via a friend of mine in Oregon a few years ago, who knew I wanted an early Colt AR-15 and happened onto one in a gunshop there. It was supposedly sitting in the rack for years- used as a "sales sample" for anybody interested in an AR-15 and they never sold it, and lost the box and etc. along the way. It is a good story , and might well be true but I have no way to verify it.
    When I first got the gun, I started to take it out and shoot it- then I started really looking at it and wondered if it might be best NOT to. It is tight as a drum- NO "rock" at all between the upper and lower assemblies or in the handguards, and the sling swivels are NOT coated with plastic. He told me before he shipped it to me that it was the best one he had ever seen, and that was not a lie. It is the nicest one I have seen also.
    This probably belongs in somebody's Colt collection- not used as a "shooter" which is what I had bought it for.

    John
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