[Harve Curry]

Is there away to look up Spencer rifle/carbine history from the Civil War and Indian Wars?
I have a 1865 model 20" barrel carbine, cal.56-50, the serial number is 1864 production date.

[Sunray]

I suspect most such records have long since been lost, if there were any such records. However, there is a listing for Spencers on the Springfield Research site. http://www.armscollectors.com/srs.htm
Scroll down, it's third from the bottom in the second column from the left.

[Harve Curry]

Thanks Sunray,

They didn't show my ser. no. but;
What I found was within 17 digits of my ser.no. range, a Spencer 1865 carbine went to the 3rd Cav, E co. on 26 July 1869.
Would that mean mine likely went there to?

It still appears that those ser. no ranges were made in 1864.
Does that mean that it saw Civil War service then was converted to the 65C Model?

[Sunray]

"...Would that mean mine likely went there to?..." Maybe, but there's no reason to assume it did. Considering 1864 is 141 years ago, I'm surprised there are any records still around.
Apparently of the 200,000 Spencer's made only 94,196 were purchased by the U.S. Government. If your's is an original and not a repo, it's worth a fair bit of money. 2 grandish. A Yahoo net search turns up 62,700 web sites. One of 'em may have the info you're looking for. Or at least more.