• Hey All! Lately there has been more and more scammers on the forum board. They register and replies to members requests for guns and/or parts or other things. The reply contains a gmail or hotmail address or similar ”anonymous” email addresses which they want you to reply to. DO NOT ANSWER ANY STRANGE MESSAGES! They often state something like this: ”Hello! Saw your post about purchasing a stock for a Safari. KnuckleheadBob has one. Email him at: [email protected]” If you receive any strange messages: Check the status of whoever message you. If they have no posts and signed up the same day or very recently, stay away. Same goes for other members they might refer to. Check them too and if they are long standing members, PM them and ask if the message is legit. Most likely it’s not. Then use the report function in each message or post so I can kick them out! Beware of anything that might seem fishy! And again, for all of you who registered your personal name as username, please contact me so I can change it to a more anonymous username. You’d be surprised of how much one can find out about a person from just a username on a forum such ad our! All the best! And be safe! Jim

Another Erroneous Claim

Sako Collectors Club Discussion Forum

stonecreek

SCC Secretary
SCC Board Member
Here's a seller who is claiming that this Finnbear was "MADE IN 1962 FIRST YEAR PRODUCTION". https://www.gunsinternational.com/g...first-year-of-production.cfm?gun_id=101410042

Well, in the first place, 1962 was the second year of production, the first L61R's being shipped in the summer of 1961.

And, he has no basis to say it was made in 1962 to begin with. It was actually inspected in November of 1963, the third year of production.

Not that there is any real value in being from "the first year of production", but saying it (without any basis) just galls me. Someone will read this ad and take it for gospel that 1962 was actually the first year. That may cause an argument somewhere down the road, and maybe even some hard feelings.

Why do people make such claims when there is no basis in fact? It reminds me of a coronavirus press briefing. Even if someone believed it was "first year" I don't think there's any danger of them paying his inflated price.

IIRC, someone mentioned a while back that they had had an unsatisfactory experience with this seller. If that is true perhaps they'll see this and let us know what problem they had so others of us can avoid issues in the future.
 
Wow! $1800 for that cracked up piece of junk!!!:eek:

Wonder if a guy could dicker him down to $1700, LOL.:D
 
I've got a 30-06 Deluxe that is 1300 below his serial number. Fired little if any outside of factory, mint. Value, who knows?????????
 
I doubt this guy is making a false claim as much as he is going by other information that puts serial numbers into a date category that has been passed around for years in relation to a supposed manufacturing date. I don’t think there is any intent to misrepresent that rifle...
 
Yes. the powers of the internet. There was one on GB a few weeks ago the guy said was 68 vintage. I told him it was closer to 78 and he said that is what he found on line for the date of his.
 
I doubt this guy is making a false claim as much as he is going by other information that puts serial numbers into a date category that has been passed around for years in relation to a supposed manufacturing date.
Which illustrates how damaging it is for misleading information to be floated around. Bad information gets repeated until many people believe it's the truth. Some people roundly criticized Jim when he took that compilation of serial numbers off of the site -- but it was nothing other than totally misleading and only served to convince people of something that wasn't close to being true. "A lie can get halfway 'round the world before the truth gets its shoes on."
 
The newspaper man's quote to James Srewart at the end of, The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, movie...…"This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
 
How accurate is this? Straight off of the Sako site. This is what I've been looking at for a while.

https://www.sako.fi/sites/default/files/SakoOldmodelsNumbering.pdf
The note at the bottom of each page says "only indicative". I think that info is good for dating when Sako initiated design or manufacturing changes, but not a reliable source for placing a born on date beyond an approximation. Not making rifles in sequential order with the serial numbers makes one number on a specific date fairly useless in determining exactly when another number was made. Some design changes were "phased" in alongside earlier stuff & took place over a period of time, which makes some of those dates shown approximations as well.
 
I've had dealings with the seller several years ago. He pretty much "slightly" misrepresents about everything he has online. Just another slickster from NY. Caveat Emptor!!
 
I’ve learned a lot in my short time on this forum, mostly that you guys are the only ones that know anything about sako rifles. I’ll be selling a few out of the last collection I recently bought . They will be listed on gun broker , but I won’t make any claims other than they are sako rifles, I’ll let you experts decide when and where they were made and who imported them . I’m kind of looking forward to hearing the different opinions of the various internet experts .
 
I’ve learned a lot in my short time on this forum, mostly that you guys are the only ones that know anything about sako rifles. I’ll be selling a few out of the last collection I recently bought . They will be listed on gun broker , but I won’t make any claims other than they are sako rifles, I’ll let you experts decide when and where they were made and who imported them . I’m kind of looking forward to hearing the different opinions of the various internet experts .
Let us know what you will be listing on GB when you do so.
 
https://www.gunbroker.com/item/860817694

"Manufactured 1963". Yes, well, give or take about 15 years. No wonder it "really looks good for its age".

I repeat: Why do they do this? There is no reference of any kind out there that shows an L579 with a serial number in the 300,000's as being anywhere near that age. The seller just pulled that date out of his ass -- or he foolishly believed someone who fallaciously told him that and repeated it.
 
The note at the bottom of each page says "only indicative". I think that info is good for dating when Sako initiated design or manufacturing changes, but not a reliable source for placing a born on date beyond an approximation. Not making rifles in sequential order with the serial numbers makes one number on a specific date fairly useless in determining exactly when another number was made. Some design changes were "phased" in alongside earlier stuff & took place over a period of time, which makes some of those dates shown approximations as well.
I would think one could indicate a little closer then that. I have a P72 with serial number 7035xx. I am wondering if the last date for the P72 should be 711754 since the m78 serial number started with 711755?? List shows last number as 03246
 
I would think one could indicate a little closer then that. I have a P72 with serial number 7035xx. I am wondering if the last date for the P72 should be 711754 since the m78 serial number started with 711755?? List shows last number as 03246
The Club has no records on the P-series of rimfire/Hornet rifles, so there isn't anything concrete we can say about their numbering or dates. However, we've found other Sakos with consecutive serial numbers that were produced as much as ten years apart.

The "last" P-72 could have been on an action produced and numbered, but not completed as a rifle until several years later -- well after the designation and stamping had changed over to "M-78". Thus #711754 could be several years newer than #711755. That's why a Sako's serial number will only provide a broad approximation of when a rifle was produced, which could be a span of years.

The Sako company has passed through several different owners since producing its first commercial rifle in 1946. There is NO ONE now at the factory who has any institutional memory of significant length. Sako's record keeping was haphazard at best. The pre-1972 inspection records and pre-1978 shipping records were obtained and microfiched by the old Sako Collectors Association and many years later digitized by the Sako Collectors Club, but records between about 1978 and when Beretta bought the business (circa 1999) seem to be non-existent.

We can appreciate that someone at the Sako factory made the effort, from scraps of old records or oral history from retired employees or whatever sources, to put together the "indicative" list of models and changes. But it should always be remembered that, while helpful, this is only a rough guide and not represented to be a fully accurate accounting of Sako's models, changes, and timeline.
 

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