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SN 28 lives here in the Woods..........It is in a half page photo in RUGER AND HIS GUNS. It was shipped to me as the holder of Subscription Holder of SN 28, as a trade for a RSS SN 14XX. SN 28 letters as a factory Prototyope in the Factory Colection with a series of letters from our Mentor, Mr Steven Vogel.

Additionally, in the mid 1980's, Mel Torme came to me asking if I had any information on his Colt Single Actions, which were among his entire gun collection taken and sold by his to-be ex wife in their divorce proceedings.( He noted that he thought she would take their house....! So much for assumptions, he added! ) I was displaying Rugers at that time and he did not mention the SN 11 and 12 guns.

This is a great thread - thanks, Hawkeye, for filling in the Mel Torme story. What a hoot! There must be other interesting horse trading stories out there.
There are still lots of holes in the list. I'm wondering where SN 98 is.

Serial Numbers #26, 27, 30 live here in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

SteveRuger wrote: ↑Mon May 26, 2025 9:32 am Serial Numbers #26, 27, 30 live here in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

Nice!
Steve, you sure do have some fine guns.
According to Ruger Pistols & Revolvers by John Dougan, the 26 and 27 guns were shipped as a consecutive set on December 29th 1953,
to John T Amber.

Any more T1 Flat Gate history from our "more experienced" members?

Updated with new found numbers. Waiting on a few factory letters to update the ship date & location on a few.
There are many without this info.
Please LMK if you can add a new "known" number or fill in information that is missing. Anonymously, of course.

Cheers,
Jay

Jay, sn 933 sold at local Fl auction for $1100, it was in rough shape I was next to last bidder. Please add to the list. Anybody on forum here get that gun? Just curious how it cleaned up…. Would love to see pic.

fishhuntnut wrote: ↑Sat Jun 28, 2025 5:06 am Jay, sn 933 sold at local Fl auction for $1100, it was in rough shape I was next to last bidder. Please add to the list. Anybody on forum here get that gun? Just curious how it cleaned up…. Would love to see pic.

Thanks Tom,
Sorry I missed that one.
I don't mind a well loved T1 Flatgate!

Jay

Hi Guys,

Here are a couple tid-bits of Ruger lore for your amusement. in the mid 1970s I purchased RSS #26 & 27 from a Florida dealer at the Houston Gun Show. A few years later #26 along with a dozen more Ruger SA were stolen from me. Well, fast forward to 2008 or so I discovered that 7 of the guns were being held in the property room of the Amarillo PD, they had been there for 28 years and were under a destruction order. Anyway, I was able to recover them and #26 was among them. At the time Terry W. was in possession of #27, so he bought #26 and put them back together.

Now, to address Mike S. observation about Mel Tome not mentioning #11 & 12. During my research at the factory in 1979 I noted these guns were shipped to Mel Torme, so I mentioned it to Hank Williams and suggested that since he knew Torme he may be able to trade him out of them. Shortly after that Hank informed me that he did indeed trade for the pair and a couple of other early Ruger SA. So, the reason Torme didn't mention the pair to Mike S. is that Hank acquired them before the divorce. There is a detailed and interesting story about the history of these guns in one of the RCA JOURNALS, it is too lengthy to include here. Both Ruger and Torme went to the grave believing, first, Ruger was pissed because Torme never paid for the guns and Torme believed the guns were a gift. If not for this spat the pair would have been included in Ruger & His Guns. Vogel used to lament, "sometimes it is better to leave sleeping dogs lie"

regards, John

John,
Just opened up my Rugers forums to see what's new (RCA, ROCS and then the Ruger Forum are the first things I look at when I get on the computer). Those are great pieces of information that adds to the collective knowledge of Ruger fans. Looks like you were pretty lucky finding those guns after all those years and the Iloved the piece about the Mel Torme and Bill Ruger "misunderstanding" That was just funny.

Great tid-bits John.
Thank you.
I hope you are working on your autobiography!

Here's the updated link to the list.
Jay

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... ue&sd=true