−27%
Palmetto State Armory
Glock 19 Gen5 MOS
$549.99
$399.99
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You have a gun you cannot name
Most people meet this subject through a box in an attic, not through a shop. Something is left to you, or found, or inherited sideways from a relative you barely knew — and you are holding an object with no history and, often, no vocabulary for any of it. This is the path from there.
It is a procedure, not a promise. It is built in the order that protects the gun's value and your safety, and it says plainly where doing it yourself stops being the right answer. Every step is sourced, and every step leads somewhere you can actually go.
First, two things that are easy to get wrong
Do not clean it. Not the metal, not the wood, not the surface. Cleaning an old gun before an appraisal, a sale or a gunsmith has seen it is the single most common way people destroy the value of an inherited firearm in the first week of owning it — and it is not reversible.
Assume it is loaded. Guns that have sat untouched for decades are found loaded far more often than people expect. If you do not know how to open the action, do not experiment with it — leave it pointed somewhere safe and get someone who knows.
Where are you starting from?
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"I've inherited it and I don't know what it is"The full procedure, in order: make it safe, find the markings, tell original from replica, date it where a chart exists, and know where to stop.Start the procedure →
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"There are no markings on it at all"The hard case. Nine places markings hide that people never check, how to read a worn stamp with raking light, and how to narrow a gun down by its features when the metal won't talk.Work the unmarked case →
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"I have a make and a serial number"Run the serial. The lookup covers the makers whose published charts are transcribed here, and it cites the exact threshold behind every year it returns.Open the lookup →
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"Can anyone actually tell me the year?"For many makers the honest answer is no, and it is worth knowing before you spend months trying. This says who holds each maker's records today, whether a published table exists at all, and what an archive letter costs.See where the records are →
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"I need this documented — for insurance, or for the estate"Build a one-page record card: what is established, what is not determinable and why, the marks to photograph, and the source behind every claim.Build the record card →
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"It has stamps I don't recognise"47 proof marks, arsenal marks, date codes and barrel-steel names, each one saying what it authorises you to say and what it does not say.Open the proof-mark legend →
What this page will not do. It will not identify your gun from a photograph. That is a deliberate refusal, not an oversight: in the community discussions this site is built on, the same unmarked revolver drew two confident and mutually exclusive answers in a single thread — "old black powder derringer of unknown manufacture" and "looks like an Ethan Allen replica, probably .36 caliber". Photo identification has that variance by nature. Offering it would mean promising a service this site cannot honestly maintain.
It also does not appraise, and it does not give legal advice. The rules on inherited firearms differ by jurisdiction and getting them wrong is not a research problem — ask a local dealer or a lawyer who handles estates.
Procedure compiled and sources last checked 2026-10-14. Where the honest answer is "this is where self-service stops", the page says that instead of inventing a next step.