Webley Air Pistol Batch Numbers

[Josie & John]

I examined the letter stamp with a jeweller's loupe, and there is absolutely no trace of any sort to indicate a light, or mis-stamped "E" - it definitely appears to me to be an "F".
I snapped this close-up pic to support my finding.
http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...eriesFPrem.jpg

Thank you Len. That is the earliest F known, to the best of my knowledge. Strange Webley stamped the pistol with an F in 1970 and then continued with the blued E Series for some 2 years. It certainly seems to be an anomaly but this is the kind of thing that makes for interesting research.

Kind regards,

John

[webman]

Do you think that Webley could have had a number of "odds and ends" of steel bodies from several years, and used them up just prior to introducing the MK 2 aluminium-bodied model? I seem to have read that the only difference between the blued "E" and "F" was the new 12-groove rifled barrel, as fitted to the MK 2. This could explain why a lot of "F" model pistols have dates before some "E" models.

[Josie & John]

Do you think that Webley could have had a number of "odds and ends" of steel bodies from several years, and used them up just prior to introducing the MK 2 aluminium-bodied model? I seem to have read that the only difference between the blued "E" and "F" was the new 12-groove rifled barrel, as fitted to the MK 2. This could explain why a lot of "F" model pistols have dates before some "E" models.

Not impossible at all. However Webleys experimented with several different coated finishes during the early/mid 1970s to save the expense of bluing and particularly polishing beforehand. They carried on making blued pistols alongside coated pistols and the former became the F Series according to Tom Cooper from notes I took after one of our conversations.

The Premier certainly makes for a fascinating study as there are so many different models.

Kind regards,

John