Received a letter from Mr. Gordon Herigstad, 208 So. Frederick Street, Burbank, California, 91505, tel. 818-566-1776, who is writing a book on the Colt Thompson submachine gun, having researched the serial numbers of 7,000 of these weapons and where they were sold, during the last 5 years. Mr. Herigstad is interested in obtaining any data on the various Thompson machine-guns that were shipped around the world during the 20's and 30's, i.e. in museums or private collections, so that their serial numbers could be noted and maybe a brief history of each gun included, obviously weapons sent to Latin America would be of interest to this society although has anyone such data?

What might be helpful is the dates that such weapons were destroyed. If any reader can be of any help could they please contact Mr. Herigstad as there were 15,000 guns manufactured in 1921 alone and he has details of only half of them. Also does anybody know whether the British Police force during the latest firearms law made records of types of weapons destroyed or placed into museums, was there a centralised record kept? If there was it would be helpful not only for this project but for future research into other types of weapons.

Mr. Herigstad also enclosed some export information related to Latin America;

AFFIDAVITS OF EXPORT FROM AUTO-ORDNANCE CORPORATION
Suite 805, Vincent Building, 302 Broadway, New York, N.Y.

Between the years of 1921 and 1925 there were approximately 1010 Thompson guns sold to foreign countries.

Bogota, Colombia; 2 guns, date of export 5/7/21
San Jose, Costa Rica; 1 gun, date of export 5/13/21
Pernambuco, Brazil; 1 gun, date of export 5/9/21
Panama; 29 guns, date of export 6/15/21
Amapala, Honduras; 12 guns, date of export 7/23/21
Sao Paulo, Brazil; 1 gun, date of export 9/22/21
Valparaiso, Chile; 6 guns, date of export 10/8/21
La Paz, Bolivia; (via Peru) 5 guns, date of export 10/26/21
La Paz, Bolivia; (via Peru) 5 guns, date of export 1/7/22
Buenos Aires, Argentina; 30 guns, date of export 1/16/22
Puerto Rico; 1 gun, date of export 2/7/22
Peru; 5 guns, date of export 7/26/22
Mexico; 80 guns, date of export 9/22/22
Puerto Prince, Haiti; 4 guns, date of export 8/15/23
Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2 guns, date of export 11/13/23
Santiago, Chile; (Spencer & Walters) 1 gun, date of export 4/17/24
Guatemala; 2 guns, date of export 6/27/25

Total of 187 to Latin America.

It is interesting to note that during this period, out of the 1010 guns exported, 615 Thompson guns were shipped to Germany!

Any assistance on the topic of exported Thompson machine guns would be most welcome, please contact Mr. Herigstad at the address quoted above.