Exploring the extremely rare Model 1924 Garand Autoloading Rifle

Guns.com stopped by the Rock Island Auction Company last week to check out their premiere firearms auction of the year. We asked Joel Kolander, the Interactive Production Manager, to go through a handful of his favorite guns that came into the auction this time around. He immdiatly lead us to a Garand as one of his favorite guns. “We do have in this auction M1 Garand serial number 1,000,000 which is getting all the attention,” Kolander said, “but this is on the other end of Garand’s career.”

It’s estimated that only 25 of these commonly referred to “Type 2” Garand models were ever manufactured before the Ordinance Dept. changed the type of powder they were testing, forcing John Garand to scrap the design of the rifle with only limited quantities manufactured. “Where are you going to find another Model 1924? The correct answer is the Springfield Armory Museum,” said Kolander. It’s one of the reasons Kolander called this gun a steal at the estimated value of $50,000 – $75,000.

Perhaps equally, if not more, fascinating than the gun itself is everything else that comes along with it. With this Garand the lucky buyer also got the specialty tool that John Garand developed to adjust the massive front sight on the gun. They get a jar of gun lubricate which was addressed to John Garand at the Springfield Armory. Then there is the very fragile box of 30-06 primer-actuated rounds, who knows if they would ever fire, highly doubtful, but still very cool. Finally, the crown jewel of bonuses, a little black notebook with notes on the 1924 design from John Garand himself. There are notes to numerous military officials in the book as well as yardage markings and test results throughout the book. This is a truely one of a kind package that you won’t find anywhere else.

Although they were only estimating that gun would sell for $50,000 – $75,000, it blew that figure out of the water by bringing in a whooping $172,000 by the time the gavel hit down on this lot. It’s an impressive dollar amount for an impressive piece of history.

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