Restoring beater M1s

[Mark in Rochester]

So what would happen to the forgers say if you had a set of original stamps.

Offered to stamp for free with a brand burnt into the back end of the stock.

Not going to happen but I think it would discourage the forgers

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[Joe W]

So what would happen to the forgers say if you had a set of original stamps.

Offered to stamp for free with a brand burnt into the back end of the stock.

Not going to happen but I think it would discourage the forgers

Mark, I think the problem would still exist. Some of the fake stamps are very good and it takes a real expert to identify them. There would still be those that "wish to deceive" and they would not want a stock that was marked as a fake. They would still go to the forgers. As Bob said, the bigest problem is going to be down the road, after the stock is out of the hands of the person that had it stamped in the first place. Even if the past owner is honest and had good intentions, at some point a future owner is either going to conveniently forget he knew the stock had a fake stamp, or may in fact not know, and he himself was duped. Either way, the stock gets passed off as being original. No good is going to come out of this. The problem is ours, the collecting fraternity.
There is now another group of people, other than "collectors", buying the M1 rifle that do not see things quite the way we do. These are people that just want to own, maybe only one M1 rifle, as a a representive piece of WW2 or Korean War memorabilia. They may only be interested in having the rifle "appear" as it did when first isued. They may not care one bit as to "originality" and surely will not spend the money for a stock with the original cartouche and will be just as happy or more so, with the fake cartouche. This of course adds to "our problem", but means nothing to them. I don't really see an answer other than to make yourself as knowledgeable as you can or ask for help BEFORE making a purchase. There are many knowledgable people in the GCA willing to help.