german marked SMLE (real or fake?)

[bearhunter]

Please don't take this as a bash to anybody on this site. I know the seller is honest. He didn't stamp the rifle. I also understand, from talking to another potential buyer, that he got the full story behind the rifle. It came in with virtually a warehouse full of other rifles, packaged in the usual way, I would suspect on pallets.
Ask yourselves why a man that has access to thousands of rifles, would bother to stamp up a fake?Why, knowing the situation among collectors, would he even try to pass one off as original and ruin an otherwise stellar reputation? He sees and has enough oddities and rarities, that it just isn't worth the bother.
I, personally think the rifle, is a bit pricey but that's just IMHO, as is my opinion of the rifle.

I've been pouring through my books to find that stamp on the stock. I can't find it. I have a nagging memory that it is a border police stamp. I just don't remember where I saw it.

One thing you can rule out, that impression wasn't made with a badge. For one thing, it's seasoned coachwood, which is as tough and maybe tougher than walnut. Badges are made from soft metals, that would collapse, before it came anywhere near making such a sharp, deep impression.

If I had the dollars and the seller were willing to dikker, I would buy that rifle and be happy to have it.

[villiers]

I saw an identical rifle at the Regina Gunshow about 4 years back. It had the yellow markings, the FTR, and the German markings stamped into the wood. The seller had not even noticed the markings, so they were not there for his profit. His price was reasonable. I passed, as it was just too suspicious a chain to have the FTR and the German markings. I posed the question on gunnutz site back then, and the consensus was "fake". Apparently there were a couple of guys in Southern Ontario who liked to spruce up their rifles for resale.

This sounds highly likely. OR: the quite often to be found bl**dy mindedness of British/Australian workers during FT. Non collectors often have a surreptitious chuckle over the gullibility of many of the collecting fraternity, their willingness to pay for any dubious legend and the greed involved in faking.

[Claven2]

Look, the OP can believe whatever he wants, but NEVER EVER did WaA number get applied one at a time under a nazi eagle. in one photo you can clearly see the three were stamped indivicually and you can make out the stamp mark impressions. FAKE. Period. In the end it matters not WHO faked it or when.

[Brian Dick]

I was going to keep quiet but what the Hell. I have one of these SMLE's that I purchased several years ago at a show. It's a 1918 SSA with a mismatch bolt in good, original condition. I bought the rifle, not the story and paid a bit of a premium at the time but nothing extreme. It's marked totally different with just a tiny droopy wing eagle, (pre 1941), apparently applied in Liege, Belgium on both barrel and receiver ring. It has a small Luftwaffe eagle stamped on the right side of the buttstock with L.Z.A. stamped underneath it. I showed this rifle to Ian Skennerton and he photographed it at the time. It turned up in his Arms and Militaria magazine in an article by Brian Labudda and was shrugged off publically as a blatant fake and he said the stamps could be readily purchased at Sarco. I did further research and found out that it wasn't true. I happen to know Charlie Steen and he's never sold those type stamps. Ian also met the previous owner of the rifle at Tulsa and was told the story and he phoned me back to say he wasn't convinced it's a fake anymore so there you go. I don't think this one is a fake but I really don't know. I have photos somewhere and if I can find them, I'll get Badger to post them for me. Unfortunately, the rifle has been tainted by an article in a magazine with world wide circulation so maybe it's tainted forever because a self proclaimed expurt says so.

[villiers]

Look, the OP can believe whatever he wants, but NEVER EVER did WaA number get applied one at a time under a nazi eagle. in one photo you can clearly see the three were stamped indivicually and you can make out the stamp mark impressions. FAKE. Period. In the end it matters not WHO faked it or when.

I can show you a number of various WaA stamped articles with stamps made up of a mix of various types. Anyone who believes that Germans always did things according to the rule book is wrong. And they obviously have never experienced the "make-do-and-mend" attitude which increases in proportion to the distance from the nearest depot. The rifle may not be correctly stamped but I would need definite proof one way or the other. If I were to fake a German WWII issue article, I can assure you that "experts" would accept it as genuine.

[Claven2]

I just don't see how anyone thinks this is a real wafffenampt stamping. It is not. Nobody is ever going to find this marking on any real German made or captured rifle. It's afantasy stamp where the numbers underneath were each added with individual number stamps. WaA stamps had the numbers carved beneath the eagle on the same stamp, they were not done individually like this. You can make out how each of these three digits is stamped separately and they were stamped too deeply so the stamp shank also made an impression.

Believe whatever you will. But this is fake.

[bearhunter]

It could also be possible that it's the 285th rifle to be stamped that way.

[Brit plumber]

Hi Guys,

I can't comment on the markings, but my own Enfield made Lithgow FTR'd MkIII has perfectly, unmarked as new park but the wood is definatly used. The butt is a SLAZ item from 1942 and the rest of the wood looks much older and darker with the Aussie brass thread wire reinforcing the week points, it has many dings and a crack so it would appear Lithgow recycled some woodwork at least.

I've also attached a photo of a single German stamp found on my Inglis Bren Mk1 DD Intermediate (MG138 (E)). The rest of the markings have been linished off, including the date and the serial number, the only marking left is Bren Mk1m.

[Frederick303]

A few more comments no one seems to have noticed, as I have an original MA/52 rebuild to compare this rifle to. The rifle above is a 1917 Enfield that was sent to Australia sometime after WWI. That much is sure by the D broad-arrow D mark on the action body. Now the wood appears to be coach wood and has been confirmed as such by someone on this thread, which means that it was replaced sometime between the late 1930s (1938 sticks in my head as around the time they started using coach wood) to pre1943. The original butt stock was almost certainly walnut. Now I do not have a 1941, 42, 43 rifle like this, but I do have a 1917 Enfield refurbished in 44 with a MA44 mark and a 1945 refurbished 1908 Enfield that has a MA/45 mark. Both are on the wood, right hand side. I see no such mark on this coach wood stock.
It is possible it was returned again to England in 1940, as were 30,000 other Australian rifles for use by England, but then the right hand butt stock markings should be more prevalent, at least that is my recollection of rifles I have seen from that period. None of the 1940/41 refurbished rifles I have seen had new butt stocks, they all had repaired ones and all had reissue marks. This stock lacks any such mark or even the faint remains of such marks. That does not seem right

Now for this to be real it had to be lost the Germans between 1940 and 1943, marked by them, recaptured and then somehow get back to Australia. Considering that the Australians were not heavily involved in the ETO at the end of the war when one might expect such a rifle to fall into their hands, it makes one wonder as to the timing. There were Australians/New Zealanders in Italy, but I do not seem to recall the Germans using any captured British arms there.

If the Buttstock had been replaced between the late 1930s and 1943, we should see some right hand side marking, at least a MA/xx date. None appears. Most rifles I have seen from this period are very dark from the creosote coating. The color of the wood seems closer to rifles reworked after 1947, with a lighter wood stock and no Creosote coating

Now to a comparison with a FTR MA/52 rifle in my collection. The one I have in a Lithgow 1916 rebuilt in 52. In researching it, I find that that the only contact from 1952 was for the RAAF completed 10/52. The quantity was 10,000 rifles. That info comes from a table that was in the old Enfield collector’s digest of what came through the proof house at Lithgow from 1950 to 1958. That rifle, which I do not know to be original and was somewhat drill use worn, had a coach wood butt stock that was free of any markings at all. It appeared to be a heavily sanded older stock, as it lacked the SLAZ marking under the grip as I have seen on new butts from that era. It lacked any old marking at all, not even faint older markings as I have seen on the right side on other reworked rifles, though some faint old markings were on the underside of the grip. The finish matches the rest of the wood, so while I have not idea if it is original, it would appear to be a similar trifle to that shown above. In short, based on the examples I have, I would expect the butt stock to be free of any markings at all when it came out of FTR in 1952.

Now look at this rifles marking in the pictures posted. Note the stock show shows signs of use and sanding, looking at the first picture. The rifle I have and this rifle both have stocks that had a coating of linseed oil and all marking were filled in with this oil (those marking under the grip). In fact the stocks were soaked in this oil as part of the FTR, look at the dark patches where the dents are. Note there is no oil build up in the NAZI marking.

No look at the metal on the action body. Note the action proofs have been rounded due to pre parkarization prep, but the NAZI marking is still very crisp. Hmmmm…..

So we are supposed to assume that a rifle that went through FTR, then saw service in the cadets has a perfect 1943 NAZI applied marking on the Butt stock? Hmmmm….

Not being an expert on Nazi markings, all I can say is the NAZI butt stock stamp looks too fresh for a marking that was there before FTR, and if the markings were removed the rifle would look right for a 1952 FTR.

On that basis I would call it a fake.

[Peter Laidler]

Nobody has quite yet explained how the eagle is looking the wrong way and the swastika is also cack-handed. Don't tell me......... the German inspector was having a bad hair day and thought he'd do it as a joke. Come on........................!

Because that's what some are virtually saying about it having passed all the inspectors during its progress through the FTR programme............