Astonishing arms & militaria collection being auctioned in Australia this week.

One collector (hoarder?) astonishing arms & militaria collection being auctioned in Australia this week.

Australia's biggest collection of historic militaria up for auction

Over 10,000 lots, including -

• 150 + WW2 Japanese Arisaka service rifles, including several rare scoped sniper variants.
• 15 x WW2 Japanese "knee mortars", and other Jap mortars - fully working order
• 14 x WW2 German MG34 machine-guns - fully working order
• 4 x WW1 German Mauser Tankgewehr - first anti-tank rifles
• 20+ WW2 Japanese Nambu pistols, including the Papa and Baby variants
• 30 to 40 WW2 German K98 service rifles
• 17+ WW2 Japanese machine-guns - Types 11, 94, 97 and others - fully working
• Several WW2 German and Japanese anti-tank guns, and artillery pieces
• Enough

WW2 Japanese uniforms, field gear etc to equip a regiment.

Because of the quantity of lots, about 16 different auctions of the same collection were held. The auction house could have done a better job on the lot photos and descriptions, but they were probably overwhelmed by it all.

Some links below -

Lloyds Auctioneers and Valuers - Auction Lots


Lloyds Auctioneers and Valuers - Auction Lots


Lloyds Auctioneers and Valuers - Auction Lots


Lloyds Auctioneers and Valuers - Auction Lots

Dreaming…

Wondering how he hung onto functional versions of the mentioned firearms in Australia? Yes, there are a few I'd like too.

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Originally Posted by browningautorifle

Wondering how he hung onto functional versions of the mentioned firearms in Australia? Yes, there are a few I'd like too.

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He was able to get the appropriate licences to keep them fully operational. There are quite a few machine guns in private ownership in Australia. A full auto Colt Commando sold recently for about $USD1700 - the same seller had a full auto Cobray machine pistol for sale at the same price too..

Goodness, $1,700! I can’t say I’ve seen one sell here but I’d have to guess it would be $30k at least.

I imagine this is a lot like the post-sample market in America.
Those sample guns are MUCH cheaper than the fully transferable variety.

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Originally Posted by Florey55

He was able to get the appropriate licences

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Nice.

Sell em before they take em. Good idea.

I failed to find the sniper rifles, and it seems most auctions are now over. Is there any chance you can tell how to locate the links to those? I'm having a tough time since the website is very confusing.

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Originally Posted by Promo

it seems most auctions are now over

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Originally Posted by Promo

the sniper rifles

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All gone...

I thought that there might have least been a 88mm anti aircraft gun amongst that lot, but, alas no.

If there had been, to get it shipped to the UK and then deactivated so that it was legal to own in the UK would probably cost more than the gun it's self. Then there would be a problem of storage and having to extend one's garage upwards, outwards and lengthways to accommodate it. Somewhat challenging maybe also trying to think of a plausible excuse to give the neighbours as to it being there, along the lines of "It's a perfectly normal bit of kit that lots of people have in their garage."