LR Collection Richardson Brothers Display

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    2024-H
Richardson Brothers Company
Sheboygan Falls
Wisconsin
WW2 Wooden Stock Parts Display

Estimated Value? 
Larry was friends with Grafton and Barbra Cook with a full file drawer of documents yet to be gone through. Any provenance related to this piece will be included. 

Display board originally from the Bill Richardson collection and the Larry L. Ruth collection.

According to "The M1 Carbine, A Revolution in Gunstocking" by Grafton H. and Barbara W. Cook There were two Richardson companies, J.S. Richardson and Richardson Brothers Furniture 
Company that were subcontracted to Overton with Inland's permission for 178,000 pistol grips.
J.S. Richardson was the machinery part of the company that built the PLG machine in order to make the pistol grips. The basic routing was done at the machinery plant, as well as routing and drilling of the grip. The PLG made too much sawdust for the machinery factory, so it was sent to the Richardson Bros. Furniture plant to be contoured and finished.

The 3 stock parts made consisted of the hand guard made for the 30-06 M1917 Enfield rifle (2 on the board). A pistol grip marked RI over 3, and an unmarked hand guard

The RI over 3 grip is familiar to the M1a1 collectors.  Collectors have also come across unmarked hand guards as well. According to the Grafton book, Richardson Brothers manufactured one million unmarked hand guards for Overton.

Richardson also made other wartime stocking machine in addition to machines for the M1 and M1a1 carbines. This included machines for the 1903a3 Springfield and the M1917 Enfield. Special machines were developed for the carrying handle for the Bren machine gun, BAR forearm, Lee Enfield forearm, shoulder stock/holster for the Browning 9mm FN.
Examples are shown on page 145.

Edited by New2brass - Oct 31 2024 at 7:23am