An M1934, serial number 606824, was used by Nathuram Godse in the 1948 assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. The pistol, manufactured in 1934, was carried by an officer during Italy's invasion of Abyssinia and subsequently taken by a British officer as a war trophy. It is not known how it came to India, but Godse was given the unlicensed firearm by a co-conspirator.

1. Beretta 950 Serial Numbers

Beretta firearms produced in Italy carry a proof mark for theyear of production. The chart below is used to identify the year bythis mark.

For recent pistols this mark is usually located on theframe near the trigger guard, for older pistols, the mark is on theslide or on the frame behind the grip area. Shotguns have this markstamped on the barrel near the chamber. You may need to remove thebarrel to read the mark.

Beretta 950 Serial Numbers

On some older firearms, produced between1925 to1954, the actual date was stamped instead of a code mark. Inthis case the date can be located near the test proof marks on theframe. The exception to this occured during the regime of BenitoMussolini. The Italian Proof House used a roman numeral systemmarking the year of his reign which began with 'I' in 1922.

Thefirst Beretta firearm using this dating system was the Model 1934pistol (introduced in 1935), thus the year was indicated as XIII(usually marked on the slide) and refering to the 13th year ofMussolini's regime. This practice ended in 1945 with XXIII at theclose of World War Two and the chart below takes up from thatpoint. It should be noted that some wartime production firearmswere void of any marking to indicate the production date. We havealso seen markings where roman and numerical figures are combined,for example XX7 for 1971, XX8 for 1972 and XX9 for 1973.