The legend there is that BATF does not have the "funding" to file or computerize those out of business dealer records.
There have been neutral correspondents who have visited the AFTE dead records facility.
It has (currently) all of 13 employees.
It very much resembles the last scene in Raiders of the lost Ark, but not nearly so neatly crated and stacked.
All of the records are in "as is" condition. Which includes thousands of hand-written books, all stacked on pallets.
So, there are pallets with every Bound Book from every Montgomery Wards store; every Sears; every K-Mart & Fed-Mart that ever had an FFL. When those companies went into receivership or bankruptcy, no one was paid to organize the records, they were just boxed up and put on pallets (some were just boxes mailed to ATFE, and ATFE put them on pallets). Also, Bound Books recovered from destroyed (fire, flood, etc.) FFL are stored there, in "as is" condition.
We have just gone a half century since GCA 68 created this mess, there have been a lot of FFLs in 50 years.
ATFE does not much talk about it, but records more than about five years old are worthless. (Which is why FFL and dispose of records after ten years.)
The manufacturers change--consider how a search of Marlin records would look.
The distributors & wholesalers come and go (and change names). That breaks the next link in the chain.
Gun shops & FFL come and go, too. They move, too.
Lastly, the buyers have lives. They sell stuff, sometimes to "Steve" at "the place." Their houses burn down or flood or are hit by tornadoes. They pass from the mortal coil, too--"Oh, we give't to Cous' Clem down to the river."
I want to remember that GSA was of the opinion that computerizing the ATFE dead records would want a man-century, and that would only be to 75% accuracy.
