Info on Mauser 71 made in Soemmerda?

[Patrick Chadwick]

That is certainly a rare bird. Made by the same factory that made the famous Dreyse needle-gun. Please take some trouble to make the very best photos you can of ALL the markings on the barrel knoxform and the receiver - numbers, stamps etc. I have a book that may, just possibly, permit identification of the inspectors who passed that rifle.

After the death of Nikolaus Dreyse, the founder of the Soemmerda factory, the Prussian War Ministry had tried to purchase the factory and turn it into a state-run operation. The inheritor, Franz von Dreyse, rejected this idea, and as a consequence the state factory in Erfurt was established after the 1870/71 Franco-Prussian war, and Dreyse received fewer and fewer government contracts.

In the end, the government arms inspectors office in Soemmerda was abolished in 1876. leaving Dreyse with a purely commercial/private manufacture of hunting rifles etc and the slow decline of the business.

Your rifle is thus one of the very last military rifles made by Dreyse in Soemmerda, and I am sure it would bring a substantial price from a serious Mauser collector. Treat it very, very carefully, and don't forget the photos!

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