Either 5/10/68 for both calibres or possibly 4/9/71 if it's .22 calibre, as Webley used some 'A' prefixed numbers twice.
Information from Chris Thrale's book 'Webley Air Rifles - 1925-2005
can anyone help with the manufacture date of my webley mk3? serial number A6706 can seem to find much on web for webley dating. thanks.
Either 5/10/68 for both calibres or possibly 4/9/71 if it's .22 calibre, as Webley used some 'A' prefixed numbers twice.
Information from Chris Thrale's book 'Webley Air Rifles - 1925-2005
yes .22
Being confirmed as .22 cal I agree the gun was made W/E 4/9/71 as per Chris's book, however I can go a little further, the gun was made in block 7 of 12 [blocks of ten used as std production units]. The gun was made by Joe the leading hand [look for a small letter J inside the forks] Thursday 2/9/71.
The other gun No. A6706 was .177 made by Graham block 6 of 10 W/E 5/10/68, date would have been Wednesday 2/9/68.
The reason I can go deeper than Chris in some instances is that He used a condensed version of the bench workers ''day book'' which I owned for many years and is now in the Birmingham Proof House Museum.
Hope it helps a little.
abellringer
wow, thats great, i couldnt even find any references for webley manufacture dates anywhere! thats really interesting, thanks for your time.
Before or after lunch?
I'm joking.
How nice to have that info on your gun.
do you have a copy of the book? I have a lovely mk 111 number A9827 [.22] & have only just noticed that there is a small letter 'j' stamped above the serial number under the barrel. So I am assuming that Joe was quality control - inspector?
kind regards Al.
Hi sorry not to have replied sooner, sometimes off forum for a while. But looking at your MKIII: as usual with ''A'' prefix and in .22 cal. it crops up twice, as I've said before Webley ran two series of rifles with the same prefix letter one after the other ???!!!
OPTION ONE is block 5 of 6 [guns made in blocks of ten] W/E 25/10/1969 this has no small letter shown in the book but that's not unusual. Given the week ended on Saturday, I would say Friday of that week. ''J'' was usually the letter associated with Joe who was in fact the leading bench hand. Webley at this time used roving inspectors across the factory as well as having a dedicated ''test'' room; I am not aware of inspectors at this time putting an I/D mark on airguns as was common practice in the 50's and early 60's.
OPTION TWO is block 1 of 4 W/E 22/7/1972 this is marked in the book as made by Dave, so if the gun had a small letter I would expect it to be ''D''. Given there is not enough production to cover the whole week, but production almost always began on a Monday, if there was a later start it was often shown as such I would accept this gun was made on Monday of that week.
With the information available it is reasonable to accept your gun was made as option one.
Hope this helps
abellringer