Group Industries BAR Curio and Relic

[Chris J]

I was looking in the Curio and Relic book published by ATF and noticed a listing of a Group Industries BAR by serial number.  Just one gun of all the BARs they made is C and R.  Does anyone know what transpired to give that gun a special niche like that?

[Dean]

An owner of a specific serial number Group BAR petitioned ATF to designate it as C+R eligible and provided independent appraisal that it should be included due to its high value as a collector firearm.

That's what Bob Naess said.

[johnsonlmg41]

Yes, you can petition for individual guns, but the reality is all MG's and conversion devices are C+R based on the law in 86' that made them rare and unique.  So far no one I know of has worked toward that end?  I guess we all wait until 2036 for the late build guns to catch up?  Not sure petitioning now would get such good results since they can't process transfers in a timely basis for the last 5 years with no end in sight?

[Chris J]

On 11/6/2022 at 3:01 AM, Dean said:

An owner of a specific serial number Group BAR petitioned ATF to designate it as C+R eligible and provided independent appraisal that it should be included due to its high value as a collector firearm.

That's what Bob Naess said.

I knew that was a possibility, but I always thought there had to be some kind of historical or event driven significance attached beyond just dollar value. Used in a movie, belonged to a historical figure, something like that.

[DINK]

A small number of examples produced will do it also.  I suspect that's the case with the Group BAR because they never made that many of them.  The West Hurley M1A1 Thompsons were added to the C&R list due to a small number of them being produced and later on the 1928s were added also even though there were more of them made.  The total number was still deemed low enough to make them rare firearms.