A: Based on our latest S/N data, this is what the breakdown currently looks like. It looks like in 1967-1971, the Albys had a straight rolling S/N that started at 0001 in ’67 and finished at ~10300 by ’71. Certain S/Ns in our list appear to either be incorrect, out of place, or perhaps the Albys stamped an incorrect date code on them. Either way, the rolling S/N is hard to argue against because it is so consistent through the ’67 to ’71 time period. By 1976-1977, it appears the Albanians had very low production numbers, only producing 1/10th what they did in previous years. These years seem to all have a S/N resetting to 0000 at the beginning of the new production year. It’s obvious that the need for the model 561 was not very great in these penultimate years. In 1978 they again ramped up production, perhaps using up all the excess parts they had lying around.
- 1967: 0701 to 0969, total of 268, likely total of 969.
- 1968: 1118 to 1492, total of 374, likely total of 523.
- 1969: 1915 to 4562, total of 2647, likely total of 3070.
- 1970: 4847 to 8577, total of 3730, likely total of 2694.
- 1971: 7735 to 10270, total of 2535, likely total of 3014.
- 1976: 0186 to 0288, total of 102, likely total of 288.
- 1977: 0286 to 0302, total of 16, likely total of 302.
- 1978: 0138 to 05046, total of 4908, likely total of 5046.
- 1979: ?? There were '79s built, we don't have any S/Ns in our database.
- Undated: 9 to 284, total of 275, likely total of 284.
These add up to 14855 "known" guns based on the high/low S/Ns. If you take into account all the ‘holes’ in between years and assume that the S/Ns reset to 0000 in ’76 thru ’78, then you get at least 16190 carbines produced. Unless there is a massive (massive compared to the number of rifles that made it into the US) block of guns missing, it’s clear that the total production run is far less 20k rifles.
-RM
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