your serial number dates to January 1943. since the battle of Guadalcanal ended in February of that year it is highly unlikely that it saw any action there, also the marines in the south pac theatre were using 1903s all the way up and into 1944 before enough garands were made to become available to everyone, Army had first dibs when it came to the M1.
as for condition, most of the garands you see come through the civilian marksmanship program(CMP) sales dept where they get the garands straight from military storage and they run them through an inspection, fix as needed and sell according to condition. the most common condition that leaves them is 'service grade' where they meet the requirements to be allowed to enter service, they have to have a certain amount of parkerizing left, the wood has to be in decent shape but can still have superficial scratches, dings and other cosmetic blemishes and the barrels can have some wear, but not so much that it would be an unserviceable rifle. they
rack grades are about the condition of the average one you see at a pawn shop where there are no criteria except for it has to be able to fire, they can be in pretty rough shape sometimes.
special grades can have new barrels, and new wood and are excellent shooters but have little historical value left to a collector such as yourself.
correct grades are all gone, these are the rifles that saw little service and are still in much the same shape they left the factories in. a many garands have been through so many refurbishings that it's not uncommon to find a winchester rifle with a springfield trigger group and an H&R barrel. if yours is all springfield parts then it really helps the value out.
I just got a M1 about a month ago from CMP and even though the cartouches have been gouged out(one theory is it was a loaner to the Greek government and they removed US markings), it is 'period correct' wood and all parts are correct to a springfield made M1 from 1944 with the exceptption of a 1952 springfield barrel. I can live with that, I've seen much rougher M1s going for hundreds more than I spent.
