L42A1 current value?

Hi all,

Struggling to get an idea of value on my L42.
Nice original rifle with all expected markings, but it is rifle only.
Mount and scope are repro, they are new although the scope has been ‘aged’.
Sling is a M1 Garand sling.
Wood is great condition, metal all good but with some areas of paint missing as seen in pics.
I’m looking at possibly part ex or selling towards getting myself a AI .308.
Any ideas please?

Many thanks https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...cf5a731e-1.jpghttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...08c6f9c7-1.jpghttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...935plist-1.jpg

UK based

If it were mine I would get the wood stained darker. It surely was once cleaned and the contrast of the cleaned versus the still dark parts could hurt its value.

What's the serial number?

How long have you had it, out of interest?

It's missing the hardest part to find which is the thing that is going to devalue it the most, I would say.

Certainly any provenance would help the value, and any digging around on the serial number, which you can PM me and I will search the records we hold for you if you wish, to give you some indication, but I suspect you know the history already.
The rifle alone as an idea MUST be in the £4-5K mark if in good condition. I would leave the wood the way it was found, mine is also a lighter wood very similar to yours.
I have the same dilemna with mine which has full provenance from the Falklands War and I luckily have all the kit in the chest including the Charlie G cleaning plastic bottle and brush which on their own can sell for up to £400. I saw an L42 sold at Devizes Guns last year and that went for well over £10k.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roy W

What's the serial number?

How long have you had it, out of interest?

It's missing the hardest part to find which is the thing that is going to devalue it the most, I would say.

---

I’ll send the serial number over to Gil to see if he can turn up any info on it.

Are you referring to the scope? Unfortunately the last owner sold it as they had a good offer on it.






---------- Post added at 05:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:32 PM ----------

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

Certainly any provenance would help the value, and any digging around on the serial number, which you can PM me and I will search the records we hold for you if you wish, to give you some indication, but I suspect you know the history already.
The rifle alone as an idea MUST be in the £4-5K mark if in good condition. I would leave the wood the way it was found, mine is also a lighter wood very similar to yours.
I have the same dilemna with mine which has full provenance from the Falklands War and I luckily have all the kit in the chest including the Charlie G cleaning plastic bottle and brush which on their own can sell for up to £400. I saw an L42 sold at Devizes Guns last year and that went for well over £10k.

---

Thanks Gil, will PM you with the serial number

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikehaspey

Are you referring to the scope? Unfortunately the last owner sold it as they had a good offer on it.

---

Such short sightedness!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roy W

Such short sightedness!

---

A real shame.
I have only ever actually fired 10 rounds through this rifle myself, it’s more of a collectors piece for me.
To be honest the RSM repro scope did the job, but I know it’s not a patch on the real deal.

Richard at Devizes would be a good bet to get a realistic price for you. Or, some more detailed photos of the wrist, sidewall and pads would go a long way to helping with any valuation/offers I would think.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roy W

Richard at Devizes would be a good bet to get a realistic price for you. Or, some more detailed photos of the wrist, sidewall and pads would go a long way to helping with any valuation/offers I would think.

---

Thanks Roy.
Yes if I do decide to sell I’ll get some better pictures together, these are just some I have on my phone at the moment

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikehaspey

Are you referring to the scope? Unfortunately the last owner sold it as they had a good offer on it.

---

What..........!!!

Surely this wasn't recently, as no one in their right mind any time in the last decade or more would think that a good idea :banghead:

Could be a good candidate for fitting a L13A1 to it though, not that they are easy to find.

Mike,
Ask on here mate, you will get an honest value IMHO from members, but Richard at Devizes would also balance that out with an good value.
Its on the list and a good 71 bring back to life rifle, worth a good price.;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

Mike,
Ask on here mate, you will get an honest value IMHO from members, but Richard at Devizes would also balance that out with an good value.
Its on the list and a good 71 bring back to life rifle, worth a good price.;)

---

Thanks for your help mate.

I’ve emailed Richard, will see what he says.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

I would leave the wood the way it was found, mine is also a lighter wood very similar to yours.

---

I would agree with you, if you can't by the darker edges clearly can see the stock was cleaned up and this huge contrast between where it was cleaned and made blonde and the areas where it is still dark. This makes it very obvious the stock had been reworked. Therefore I had suggested to stain it darker to reduce the contrast and make the colors better matching.

Promo,
Yes sometimes its eye catching when done like that, but if the rifle has good clean blonde wood now, I would leave it as it was.
My L42 was written off during the Falklands War and brought back to life by Peter Laidler on return to the UK, so one has to assume Peter changed the wood when the new action was fitted, he can't remember it individually as I have asked him as he must have dealt with thousands of them over the years.
So my view would be leave it as it was with all its patina and knocks......blonde is blonde!;)

Chaps.........., please....... The colour of the wood makes no difference and made no difference to us at the sharp end of the Armourers shops, believe me. We fitted or re-fitted what was available from Ord or that was on the shelf. And so long as it was all 'sort-of' the same hue, that's all that counted. I could be wrong here but so far as I recall, I don't remember a sniper coming in and asking if we could fit some different colour wood. Maybe I was out that day if they did. They ALL had multiple patches, whether you liked them or not. Big gobby sploshes of matt khaki and black paint soon solved the colour issue

As for the telescope, don't forget that there were a few knocking around with metric L1A2's - converted Mk2/1 telescopes when the shortages began to bite. So don't ignore an easily convertible Mk2 or even easier Mk2/1

I have two No4Mk2s that have never been issued just unwrapped both Blonde and darking differently similar to that L42.

The reality was you used matt green sniper tape and broke up all surfaces that reflected anything, so it really is, as Peter says immaterial what colour the wood was ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

The reality was you used matt green sniper tape and broke up all surfaces that reflected anything, so it really is, as Peter says immaterial what colour the wood was ;)

---

I don't think green sniper tape had entered the service in my time, if it did the QM was just sitting on it.

We used black masking tape, or black nasty as I recall it was called by the lads. The only time I ever used it was in NI to mask out the broad arrow and MOD marking that had been engraved on the top of my issue Pentax Spotmatic camera with an electric pencil. The very same camera that I was supposed to mingle with the press with and pretend I was one of them!

Mick,
Absolutely not about in the 70's but gaffa tape and face veil did the job admirably. Yes the old ASAHI issue 35mm which I had in the Int Section. Great little camera and things always looked good in B/W and still do IMHO

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

Yes sometimes its eye catching when done like that, but if the rifle has good clean blonde wood now, I would leave it as it was.
My L42 was written off during the Falklands War and brought back to life by Peter Laidler on return to the UK, so one has to assume Peter changed the wood when the new action was fitted, he can't remember it individually as I have asked him as he must have dealt with thousands of them over the years.
So my view would be leave it as it was with all its patina and knocks......blonde is blonde!;)

---

I would agree with you, but I don't think it was Peter nor any other armourer who had sanded the stock of this rifle to make it blonde since they either would replace it or leave it as it is. So when looking at this rifle again the stock was cleaned post being withdrawn from service by a private individual. And my simple suggestion was to "repair" what bubba had done to it since in my opinion it detracts value.

I 'acquired' a superb Asahi Pentax Spotmatic camera with a lens (was it 1.2, .4 or .6,) that you could almost take pictures in the dark with. My friend Al 'acquired' a Minolta SRT101 that he said was better than the spotmatic. He described mine as a POLEX watch as against his ROLEX!!!!!!! Cheeky toerag!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Strangely Brown

I don't think green sniper tape had entered the service in my time, if it did the QM was just sitting on it.

We used black masking tape, or black nasty as I recall it was called by the lads. The only time I ever used it was in NI to mask out the broad arrow and MOD marking that had been engraved on the top of my issue Pentax Spotmatic camera with an electric pencil. The very same camera that I was supposed to mingle with the press with and pretend I was one of them!

---

Have a look in The British Sniper, A Century of Evolution and you will see historical pictures of L42’s clad in green sniper tape.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by chosenman

Have a look in The British Sniper, A Century of Evolution and you will see historical pictures of L42’s clad in green sniper tape.

---

Indeed; I'm looking forward to your L96 edition now to go with the first one!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Strangely Brown

Indeed; I'm looking forward to your L96 edition now to go with the first one!

---

Slow progress at the moment with one thing and another but it’s shaping up well.

Always hard to put a price on something like this, I PM'd Mike as I have a Chest for a L42, I bought sometime back from a fellow member on here, as I was holding on for a similar rifle that was without its chest and scope etc.

In the end the owner didn't want to sell but offered me £1200 for the chest......and I'd offered him £2500 for the rifle.......... at the time a scope and bracket was around £2000 so an expensive way at that time, as a full CES was around the £5000 mark.

Going by a most recent price of a sale of a L42 by a member and dealer on here, full CES (minus the expensive plastic bottle) was £8500 IIRC, I would say the rifle as it is would be around £3000-£3500 tops, its lost its shine as I would say the woodwork has been replaced outside the Armourer shop, no scope and no sign of what number scope was fitted, to find a correct scope and mount would be like trying to prize blood out of a stone, as the owner is probably looking for the correct rifle for it or would only let it go to the correct rifle, then its the chest to acquire,

Chest approx £1000 +, scope and mount £2500- £3000.

Ideal for anyone who has the bits above...... ( so I'd be interested)

On the subject of the colour of the wood, I did spend a while looking at this when I first purchased the rifle.
There are a lot of L42s out there with mismatched wood, it’s usually that same piece, but not always:
I’ll attach some pics that a simple google search turns up.

The way I see it, if a private individual decided to clean the top section up, they would have done it for aesthetics - and in that case they would have taken the time to make the wood match afterwards? I know I would anyway, otherwise why bother to tidy it up at all?

I was never a sniper but I was in the military and a rifle was a working tool, it wasn’t meant to look pretty, we certainly didn’t worry what a private collector would think of it’s condition further down the line.... so to me, the wood was much more likely to be have done this way whilst in military service, perhaps towards the end of its career when they used up whatever spares they had to hand.

This is the reason I have left it as is anyway, a future owner might decide to stain the wood to match, which is fine, but not for me.... that difference in tone is part of this rifles history (imho).

P.S. I’m not adverse to doing work like that when required, my 1917 SMLE had been rubbed back and varnished at some point, that was stripped and is now back looking the way it should be [emoji1360]

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...c0104046-1.jpghttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...54a9e870-1.jpghttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...dff10740-1.jpghttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...035ce367-1.jpghttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...53a12673-1.jpghttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...eb0eb358-1.jpghttps://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...a6eplist-1.jpg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by bigduke6

Always hard to put a price on something like this, I PM'd Mike as I have a Chest for a L42, I bought sometime back from a fellow member on here, as I was holding on for a similar rifle that was without its chest and scope etc.

In the end the owner didn't want to sell but offered me £1200 for the chest......and I'd offered him £2500 for the rifle.......... at the time a scope and bracket was around £2000 so an expensive way at that time, as a full CES was around the £5000 mark.

Going by a most recent price of a sale of a L42 by a member and dealer on here, full CES (minus the expensive plastic bottle) was £8500 IIRC, I would say the rifle as it is would be around £3000-£3500 tops, its lost its shine as I would say the woodwork has been replaced outside the Armourer shop, no scope and no sign of what number scope was fitted, to find a correct scope and mount would be like trying to prize blood out of a stone, as the owner is probably looking for the correct rifle for it or would only let it go to the correct rifle, then its the chest to acquire,

Chest approx £1000 +, scope and mount £2500- £3000.

Ideal for anyone who has the bits above...... ( so I'd be interested)

---

Highwood Classics have a non complete CES up at £8750.

You’re looking at £2500 for correct scope & mount (one sold on eBay last week)
£1k for an original transit case, the only other bits in that particular setup are the scope tin and sling, so you’re looking about £400 worth, so let’s say £4K total.

That means they’re putting a value of £4750 on the rifle alone... but of course it does have the luxury of it having its correct scope & mount known, whereas mine doesn’t.

Anyone else have any ideas on the value of rifle alone?
Thanks

The problem with asking for values is that anyone who is vaguely interested will either abstain or undervalue it, for obvious reasons. Those who give favourable valuations probably have no intention of buying it, so having no horse in the race will undoubtedly value it higher than others.

The only true way of finding out is an auction, but then you are playing Russian Roulette and get hammered for fees.

What does it owe you, what do you need to get for it?

We had a thread on here recently about a Unicorn Maltby No.4 where no amount of valuations were ever deemed good enough and it didn't sell at the higher price.

No.4T's without a scope and mount can be had from £1500 upwards. L42 without a scope, mount or anything else? £3k ?

Everyone will be guessing unless they just sold one.

Devizes sold a lovely patina'd all matching L42 with correct scope and mount last year for £6500 without any CES. That puts yours, I would say, at £3k because even with a scope and mount it will never be all matching.

Oh well on that basis........everything including the kitchen sink can't miss the centre of a figure 12 at 600m metres and a great war story to boot. Its yours for £15K. :thup::lol:

I would say Roy W is on the money regarding value and that would be the top price in my opinion far less in an auction, as It bears no scope number on the butt, its the reason I say it was done outside an Armourers shop, I'm sure if the butt was replaced they would of re stamped the scope number.......

I really love these coy threads "hey guys, what's it worth?" Such subtle marketing fools me every time, that's for sure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by RobD

I really love these coy threads "hey guys, what's it worth?" Such subtle marketing fools me every time, that's for sure.

---

Rob.
I made it quite obvious in the initial post that I was thinking of selling it, there’s nothing coy about it.
I need an idea of what to ask, if a buyer happens to come along and I do decide to sell, great!

Mike,
Go for £3500 - £4500 thats fair beyond all measure, and my experience on the rifle itself. Good luck;)

See what I mean

Hmm, some prices quoted are a little inflated I'm afraid, I based my figure on what Mike may be able to get for it, for a dealer to buy it and an auction price it would be a lot lower, you only have to look at some L42's that were sold in the past and how long the dealer has had them........,Some of these may only sell due to certain reasons, This particular rifle has lost its scope identity and will be a bitsa regardless what you do with it, so the collector value isn't there thats were the difference lies in value.

We have all heard Peter say abut rifles that go through a workshop etc but in most cases the bracket at least would remain with the rifle even if everything else is replaced and even the scope. So a lot of us with L42's may have a rifle that have had the same treatment, Peter also mentiond the dire state of some of the rifles at the end of the service, I know mine was one of them but thats the way I like them, Mine is semi retired and gets fed downloaded ammo a few times a year.

The temptation to give my own a full workshop treatment and make it look like new was there for some time but I'll leave that to the next owners decision, For anyone wanting a blank canvas to work on then Mike's rifle ticks all the boxes .......

Roy,
I would agree on price just for the rifle at £3K but the L42 is what people are willing to pay for them as with many many rifles currently.
I say good luck to you Mike and I am sure someone will go for it as a listed L42 and you can always come down a tad :D

Agree with all that’s been said in the last few posts.
I would be happy with £3k, it would get me my money back and get me the rifle I’m looking at.
I’ve put it up on here in the sales section at £3.5 incl scope, 3250 without (cost me 450 for scope & mount) with a view to being knocked down a bit.... will stick it on other forums etc too.
Will see how it goes!
Thanks all for your help & input on this.
Mike

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gil Boyd

I say good luck to you Mike and I am sure someone will go for it as a listed L42 and you can always come down a tad

---

Listed is one thing Gil, but the proof is in the pudding........ there are a few not quite right L42's out there, I remember Scotarms had a L42 listed, it wasn't an L42, but it was made up on a No4T body and no markings as a L42, still had the T on the side, the other strange thing was a hole drilled in the centre of the wrist ??

If anyone has an L42 and it looks like a hole was in the the wrist then PM me but it wont be good news.

Pantographs are out there and very easy to operate.......... I've a list of approx six rifle serial numbers that were scrapped, only a matter of time for one of them numbers to pop up in the future...

Don't forget there were examples in the late Chris Barbers collection which were as straight as a five bob note........I know, I had one of his lash ups (not an L42) I returned it ASAP but I know it ended up with an Enfield dealer with a few more 00's on the price tag......what a can of worms that was.

Luckily its not as bad as the German stuff out there, easy for the forger as there was several patterns etc and all the correct stamps are available.

A mate of mine was enquiring about some repro stamps for the K98 a guy produces in the USA, out of the conversation the guy had said he had not long sold two full sets to certain Dealers in the UK,

One of them advertises his services on re stamping replacement barrels etc for the K98....... throws a question or two on the saying " all matching " :lol:

Is this a real L42 ?
I think this rifle is for sale on Guntrader with a side view of its markings.
None of the pictures on milsurps have this picture.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by 303 Collector

Is this a real L42 ?
I think this rifle is for sale on Guntrader with a side view of its markings.
None of the pictures on milsurps have this picture.

---

Attachment 103617

Not surprised it wasn't shown. Those screws have been butchered. The Engraving looks a little odd. What is that big blob of stuff to the right of the engraving?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roy W

Attachment 103617

Not surprised it wasn't shown. Those screws have been butchered. The Engraving looks a little odd. What is that big blob of stuff to the right of the engraving?

---

The reason that picture wasn’t posted on this thread is because it didn’t exist when the thread was posted.
I took more detailed pictures the last couple of days whilst I’ve been sending them off to people much more knowledgeable than myself on these rifles for them to have a look.
Yes those screws are worn, the mount needed a shim fitting for use with the replica mount, so they’ve been in and out.... new screws are easy enough to find.
The big blob of stuff is paint. It’s been repainted in areas at some point.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mikehaspey

The reason that picture wasn’t posted on this thread is because it didn’t exist when the thread was posted.
I took more detailed pictures the last couple of days whilst I’ve been sending them off to people much more knowledgeable than myself on these rifles for them to have a look.
Yes those screws are worn, the mount needed a shim fitting for use with the replica mount, so they’ve been in and out.... new screws are easy enough to find.
The big blob of stuff is paint. It’s been repainted in areas at some point.

---

So are the pads sweated on now, or are they just screwed on with shims behind? They both look like they've been off?

Do you have closer and clearer photos of all the markings Mike? And the wrist?

Not saying it isn't genuine, but it clearly needs some TLC which might affect it's desireability