Purchase of Rifle by Oswald
Shortly after the rifle was recovered from the sixth floor of the Depository, FBI agents identified Crescent Firearms, Inc., of New York City, as a distributor of surplus Italian 6.5-millimeter military rifles. On the evening of November 22, 1963, Crescent’s records showed it had shipped an Italian carbine bearing serial number C2766 to Klein’s Sporting Goods Co. of Chicago. Officers at Klein’s, searching records from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., located the shipment of that serial-numbered rifle to “A. Hidell, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Texas,” on March 20, 1963.
Tracing the Rifle from Crescent to Klein’s
Klein’s received the rifle from Crescent on February 21, 1963, bearing serial number C2766, and assigned it internal control number VC836. Italian Armed Forces Intelligence Service records confirmed this was the only rifle of its type with that serial number. According to Klein’s shipping order form, one Italian carbine 6.5 X-4× scope, control number VC836, serial number C2766, was shipped parcel post on March 20, 1963, to “A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas.”
The Mail Order and Payment
Klein’s microfilm records show an order for the rifle received on March 13, 1963, on a coupon clipped from the February 1963 issue of the American Rifleman, signed in handprinting “A. Hidell, P.O. Box 2915, Dallas, Texas,” and mailed in a hand-addressed envelope of the same name and return address. Treasury Department and FBI document examiners identified the bold printing on the coupon and the writing on the envelope as Lee Harvey Oswald’s, comparing them to his known handwriting on letters, his passport application, and check endorsements. A U.S. postal money order for $21.45 ($19.95 for rifle and scope, $1.50 for postage and handling) accompanied the order and was also identified as Oswald’s. Klein’s cash register imprinted the $21.45 receipt on the shipping order on March 13, 1963, and a corresponding bank deposit was made that same day.
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