I have a very odd P226. I got it as an impulse buy at a little gun/pawn in Middleburg, FL because it was a 9MM and I really wanted a .40 S&W, but the price was right and it was like new. I tried a couple times to trade it for a .40 S&W pistol at shows, but couldn't find a decent enough P226 to merit the trade.
Then one day I was cleaning it, and really looked at the details of it, and I saw the import mark read "Lysons Corner, VA" when it should have read Tysons Corner, VA. Knowing that was an error, I started looking closer at the gun. The manufacture date was in early 1983, but according to Sig records, no P226s were made and imported for public sale until late 1985/86. The P226 was a redesign of the P220 and developed to be used to compete as a replacement for the 1911A1, and the trials that included the P226 started in late 1983, which was when all the pistols were supposed to have arrived.
So what was a P226, with incorrect stamps, and a production date that's earlier than the date of the trial pistols, doing over here? Even more interesting is there have been about four of the pistols show up, and other owners, like I, have tried to find out more about them from Sig, and like me they were told there are no records of these pistols ever being made or exported.
My suspicion is these pistols were snuck in by Sig to be used to do some pre-trial demo'ing, which was against the rules, and those Lysons Corner import marks were made by someone at Sig instead of BATF folks, who would have certainly known it should be Tyson's Corner. We've been told the pistols could be worth anything from less than a regular Sig because of the errored import mark to $75,000 because of the rarity of the markings, so who knows? I just enjoy shooting it from time to time.
My rack is full, and I have pretty much every handgun I've ever wanted. I just need to replace a Colt Series 80 1911 that I sold after getting an offer I couldn't say no to, and I want a Walther PPK/S. After that, I'm finished.
