If it was reported as lost then I doubt it is on any hot list of items to be on the look out for. I remember reading stories of how whole P-38s were torched on the Pacific airfields at the end of the war. It was cost prohibitive to fly them back to the US. Besides what would the army do with a gun that hasn't been in service for over 20 years?

That all said, if you start advertising all over the place that you had this stolen Army pistol, you might get some unwanted attention. The other side of the coin is the state you live in. Many states and municipalities have laws on gun ownership, especially pistols. Having an unregistered pistol in your glove box probably wouldn't look too good at a traffic stop.

To be honest, the same gun could be had for little under a thousand dollars. So while that is a good sum of cash it isn't enough to risk running into the law because you wanted to get by under the radar, as it were. I wouldn't recommend selling it, by the time you get a lawyer to see if it is ok then you probably wouldn't be making much profit on it. Just don't commit any crimes with it and you should be fine!

That was a common thing. There are a great many USGI 1911s running around out there, and not all of them were sold by the government. Please post pics, they are fantastic collector's guns and a pleasure to look at.

Is the army coming for your pistol? Nope. They'd be busy chasing every gun GIs never returned through two world wars and later. Odds are when he didn't return it, his pay was docked the value of the gun, or a friendly quartermaster wrote it off as lost.

I'd like to ask a follow up if I may. I know OP doesnt want to post pictures for obvious reasons, but I dont suppose he can disclose the manufacturer of the 1911, specifically if it was made by a non-firearms company?

Is it still in usable conditions? Have you tried to operate it?