El Tejon -- what's this about prosecuting the finder?
"Problem with that is, Prince, that sometimes they prosecute the finder. Have had it happen twice."
Do you mean it's happened to *you* twice? Or, barring that, to whom?
Without agreeing with the underlying serial-number mania (please show me how that jibes with the 2amdt) I agree for real-life purposes with the folks who've suggested (if you think accepting this gun is an acceptable risk) obliterating completely any parts from which the serial number's been removed (on a P32, would that be anything besides the frame? Is there one on the barrel, too?) and keeping or selling the "non-gun" parts. If that's a gun you'd be happy to have (I'd sure take one for free, though not in the situation this thread describes), you now have spare parts, including extra mag.
BUT, one level up from "erase from this planet the offending de-marked parts," there does seem to be something fishy here, so fishy that avoiding the whole thing seems like a wise idea. The first time I was ever offered a gun for sale, it was in Dresden, while I was a high school exchange student to Germany. A nervous man with a strange condition (clumps of mossy-looking hair on his face, in irregular patches) accosted a few friends and me while we walked around the weirdness of un-reconstructed Dresden, and tried to interest us in various things that he claimed he could procure. Note, this is a foursome of clean-cut 17-or-so-year-olds with school backpacks being offered particularly illegal guns in another country -- I don't think he'd done a thorough marketing survey. We passed, and I can tell you that I don't regret it
*
timothy
* Though I now wonder: was it a perfect-condition Makarov?