This gun was delivered to the Chief of the Office of Counterintelligence on October 21st, 1943. I wrote to Colt and got a letter (still waiting on the actual letter). Haven't seen too many with the "US PROPERTY" mark on the backstrap. Original plastic "Coltwood" grips that were standard on this model. Has the flaming bomb mark of course. It runs like a fine watch. The frame screws don't appear to have been disturbed if it was ever disassembled at all. The only problem is the barrel...this gun was made for the military by Colt, but it's the same gun as the Official Police that was produced during the same period, but the Commando is parkerized. The barrel on this gun is marked "Official Police", and the historian at Colt said it was either a replacement or an error from the factory. I assume it's a replacement barrel, probably added after the gun was turned back in after service. The letter only states it had a 4 inch barrel with parkerized finish. I would have thought it could have been a mistake at the time of build, but the Official Police roll mark looks more like the later roll marks for that model instead of the roll mark that was used on the Official Police in the late 30s and 40s.
Still, a pretty cool old piece of WW2 history, only a little over 50,000 were made. They didn't see much in the way of combat, 12,800 were sent to the Office of Counterintelligence, some to the Navy, some to MPs, and others to various departments. It has an SSN on the butt that comes back as belonging to a gentleman that passed away in 2012 at age 86. I won't divulge the number or his name, but I thought that was really interesting. Couldn't find an obituary online for him, so I don't know anymore than that at this point.
