I had a question about a gun I had bought one time, i called the PD from a pay phone (before cells were common) and they ran a check, it was clean, no big deal.
If they would have said its stolen where are you bring us the gun, i could have just hung up the pay phone and walked off.
They did not ask for my name or anything when i called to have the serial # checked.

I would say for anyone else wanting to do this, just call from a pay phone like I did and if they want personal info from you can always hang up and no issue.

If it was stolen from another state its a better chanec the PD will have it destroyed then returned if you give it to them.