Indian SMLEs with new serial number

[telperion]

Hi there,

I’ve been collecting SMLEs for a while and over time, I have encountered a number of SMLEs with some odd features:
-most are made in Ishnapore and date to the early 50ies
-they seem to have been as good as brandnew when they hit the market
-their serials are ground off, and a new one added instead. Very coarsely, at that
- most if not all have Israeli property stamps
The serials I could observe are in the 10.000 to 50.000 range, so maybe 40.000 to 50.000 were altered. The new number was applied independently of the original maker/year combination. What‘s the reason to eradicate the serial and leave the maker mark intact? The alterations are too uniform to be just accidental imho.
I searched around but found nothing that could explain the special history of these guns.
India and Israel were not at good terms in the early 50ies from what I’ve read (I might be wrong, though), and what is more, .303 British definitely wasn’t the preferred caliber in the IDF at that time or later.
Has anyone heard of them? Additional info of any kind would be welcome!

Many thanks

T
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