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
Attachment 136312

[Giove]

These L.-E. with Israeli marks appears from time to time. I have one.
I don't know where these, dated in the '50s, come from.
Here, in Italy, an article has been published, but to me, and not only to me, it seems to be the result of a strong imagination.

https://www.gunboards.com/threads/po...9#post-9440499

[Sapper740]

Although the nascent IDF garnered weapons from wherever they could find them firearms chambered in .303 British were very prevalent. The IDF was formed from units of the Haganah and Palmach who were mainly armed with British weapons many of which were stolen from the Brits. The IDF went so far as to produce a training manual for the SMLE so they couldn't have been all that rare.

[telperion]

Yes I Know that. I have some SMLEs (apart from that one) with IDF marks, and even a No 5, at that, but in all those cases the original number has been left in place. We know this pattern from many other pieces.
My point is the timeframe these Indian ones came to Israel, and that they had the serial number ground off and a new one added. This must have happened only from 1953 on, as the most recent of those pieces described above are from that very year.
Israel had even begun to replace their Mausers by the FAL at that time.
Yes the IDF got these, but my question is: where did they come from, and why are they altered that way???!!

T