seller AFAC

[krinko]

Hambone's nose works much better than mine---I still can't smell cold blue.
-----krinko

Information

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[smle13]

has anyone had any expience with an smle with the volley sights from him because a few years back he had a beutiful 1908 bsa, i regret bying it, then from what others have been saying ill have to find out and buy a couple rifles to just look at them and probably send them back.

[Hambone]

Hambone's nose works much better than mine---I still can't smell cold blue.
-----krinko

You're a good man Krinko and did the collecting community a service by posting up on this back when. We all want to believe what we get is what it is advertised to be.
Cheers,
HB

[SpikeDD]

Greetings Gentlemen,

This has been a long time coming, too long in fact. Partly because of a one time friendship, so I thought, partly out of once felt respect, but mainly... It had to be presented correctly and convincingly and for the first time, I had run into a writing wall about how to present this information. I learned quite a bit from Mr. Edwards over the years and our conversations date back to before his first book. I have taken a long time thinking about this ( Krinko can verify this as I approached him well over a year ago with my information ) and have finally come to the conclusion that the interests of fellow collectors, in particular, the novices, deserve to have available to them any information there may be to help decipher and weed out the crap to better serve in deciding on a purchase.

I would like to start off stating that I am not the first to bring this information to surface and over the years there have been at least a half dozen references to the altering of rifles by Mr. Edwards. I can't imagine a handful of people from across this country waking up one day and decide... "OK, It's pick in AFAC day".

I have bought at least 7 rifles from Mr. Edwards over the years past and the following is a outline of 5 of them. These rifles were ones that I had asked for in particular and amazingly, he had them. He did in fact tell me that he had to stain match a set of hand guards for one but I wasn't bothered by that. The acquisition of these rifles were in my very early years of collecting and I had not yet learned all the anal detail needed to clearly pick out what had been done to these rifles, I was at that time just happy to have found what I was looking for.

I have tried to compile the following pictures in a fashion that will hopefully leave little doubt as to what is going on with these rifles and who has done it. I would also like to point out that renumbering bolts, nose caps rear sights and forestocks is just one aspect of the forgery. Two of the rifles I purchased from Mr. Edwards were once DP rifles and DP'd in a fashion that has seen little exposure on the boards and unless you know what to look for you may never notice what had been removed to allow a unmodified bolt to be used. I feel you will also see some of the marking disc's are more than suspect and clear evidence of import mark removal. Please forgive the pic intensity.

Rifle No.1--- Royal Marine regiment marked and "N" marked for the Royal Navy

Rifle No.2--- South African Air-Force/Anti-Aircraft regiment marked and South African ownership marked.

Rifle No.3--- Princess Patricia Light Infantry regiment marked and Canadian ownership marked.

Rifle No.4--- Royal Air-Force regiment marked

Rifle No.5--- 1918 NRF

All WWI rifles.


The rifles, Less the NRF which I found after taking this photo.


The Regiment Marks



This is the only one I feel is "original"


The Receivers






The Bolts. Every one crisp and clear as "new". Note the 9's and 4's







Rear Sights. 2 out of the 5 are original, but, you can clearly see the outsiders.






The Nose Caps. Again, 2 are original the rest, well...






The Re-Bluing and "Antiquing" Also note the "antiquing" in the area where the view dates would normally be.




One of the DP Rifles

The Other DP Rifle



The Small Plates Removed from the DP'd Rifles. In order for a bolt to be fitted after one of these plates is installed, you have to grind the small locking lug down over half way so it will pass over the plate in the lug channel. You can clearly see the chisel mark on one of the remnants of the stud after having knocked off the small plate.




last, But Not Least, Where the Import marks... Were. You can clearly see the grinding and sanding marks, along with some " antiquing"






A few Comparisons that make you say..... Hmmmmm

The 5's



The 2's



The 7's




The 1's




The 4's




The 9's



Please feel free to take the photos and make your own comparisons. Any information that can be drawn from them will benefit all of us.

Krinko, I should have come out in support of you on this long ago... I apologize and hope this helps out.