K98 Bring Back

[Dstout]

I posted this on the CMP "Barn Finds" thread and thought I might get some feedback from you guys here.

Not a barn find but it was a closet find. I had a lifelong bachelor great uncle who was an ambulance driver in WWII. He went ashore on D+1 and drove until the end of the war. My grandfather said that he never talked about his wartime service. Sometime during his travels he picked up a numbers matching (except for the bolt) K98 from the battlefield and brought it back with him. When he passed away in the early to mid 80's my grandfather was cleaning out his house and came across it, still packed in cosmoline, in a pillowcase in the back of a closet. He gave it to me for helping to clean out his house. I was either 14 or 15 and you'd thought that he gave me a million bucks. I went down to Wal-Mart, bought two boxes of Remington 8mm ammo and shot as much as I could. Damn did that thing kicks. I still have one of the boxes that I bought in my gun cabinet. It still has a bunch of the cosmoline on it but now has a little more pitting that I remember. The Romanian ammo in the picture is some that I bought at a gun show last year.



here are the rest of the photos.

K98 Mauser pictures by deesnikon - Photobucket

***EDIT***
I forgot to add that he found a receipt in one of his old wallets that was from the Department of the Army that proved that it was a "bring back". It had the "655" numbers on it,e the date of manufacture and type of weapon that it was. It was signed by his Commanding Officer. At one time I had the receipt along with his unit yearbook about their time in Europe but it has been lost over the years and moves.
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Fortes Fortuna juvat
2nd Bn, 3rd Marines

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