german marked SMLE (real or fake?)

[Peter Laidler]

Ah yes Villiers, but what about when you are not in battlefield conditions or in a hasty fraught situation? What about for example, a peacetime factory in 1952, busy FTR'ing many thousand rifles, being out-inspected at each stage by eagle eyed inspectors. The War is over, Korea is just about finished, nothing else on the horizon.

I know people believe what they want to believe but when it comes to faking something up, then there are better and less obvious fakes. That's only my opinion base on my scant knowledge of anything German but a good insight into what we call '.........the bleedin' obvious'

And I can see exactly what Son is saying too. Take the REME badge for example, where the horse looks to the left. Where there is a SET of badges, in the collar for example, then the OPPOSITE one will show the horse facing the right. BUT, like the swastika thinggy, the all important crown wouldn't be defaced.................. Just a thought

[enfield303t]

I think it is not much of a stretch to put the Enfield and the M44 into the same category so here goes. The 44 is in a depot in a communist country sometime after 45 but before 48. This is a "given" as THE DEALER told us the gun was in a case packed in 47 and he has the paperwork to prove it. Should you disagree with this statement then I think it is only fair you must take the $1,000.00 challenge THE DEALER has put forward and prove this wrong. In this depot is a worker, probably making less than $1.00 a day and has some spare time to have some fun. He has been thinking for weeks how he can financially help someone somewhere in the future and comes up with the idea of marking a few guns with the Nazi stamps he has (unknown to him if stamps are fake or real). He does this with the realization that many many years in the future these guns will have a higher value. This person is not a good communist as he his thinking is capitalist so profit is important for him or someone else. He marks some guns with the expectation that the seller who makes the profit will track him down and share his "booty". And all this time I wondered why communism failed???

[Oatmeal Savage]

The facts speak for themself, all else is bumph.

[Frederick303]

I would add, looking at the pictures, that the NAZI markings look too crisp on the buttstock.

I have a FTR 52 from the same batch, and the wood likes very similar to that wood, except it is coachwood, not Walnut. Now the stock in that picure looks sanded, there are dents you can see that have been sanded over, part of the FTR process. The unmarked stock on my rifle was also sanded. Yet on the pictures of the rifle in question, the Nazi marking looks just like new, with no sign of being sanded over.

The final part of the FTR was to soak the wood in linseed oil, which will tend to both darken the crushed area under stamping and also fill them up. You can see some sheen in the picture, the wood does have oil on it. Yet in this case, there is no filling of the NAZI marking, almost as if it had been added after the FTR.....

If that were not enough, the folks that collect 98K rifles think it is a fake stamp marking. Now the 98K collectors have been fighting faking for years, on the Gunboards site they have some very good posts on fakes, as the prices on Germna wepons are far higher than enfields.

Enfield collectors have seen little of this, other than with sniper rifles, due to the generally lower price of enfields prior to the last 5 to 6 years. This rifle seems to be no more than a 200 or 300 dollar rifle (at most), that sold for 900 or 100 dollars because of this marking. One can say the seller is honest, but the collecting world has seen many examples of high end collectors, authors and dealers getting caught creating fantasy pieces or passing on as real pieces that they knew to be fake rather than taking the loss themselves.

There was a very well known fellow about 4~5 years ago who specialized in pointing out fake 98K sniper rifles. He was caught making fake 98K snipers as a rifle that came up for auction that had no scope suddenly became a sniper after he got his paws on it.

One of the main collectors who opened his collection of 98K rifles for pictures in what is considered to be the definitive published book on the 98K was put in an embarassing posiition when the condition of one of his rifles evolved between the first and second edition of the book. It seemed he was making some modifications to his rifles.

In the world of M1 Garands, one of the first published authorites on M1 rifles has been caught "correcting" the parts on samples sold by his firm, that is replacing parts on rifles to ensure ther rifles had the correct dash numbers for the period in which it was first assembled, such is the differnce between correct and non-correct pieces

There is an author of a book on the Indian Enfields which is thought to have generated a number of upgraded or renumbered Lee-Enfield rifles for sale.

Not saying the seller is dishonest, simply saying that the rifle must be judged on its own merits, who the seller is and his statements does not really have any bearing on the rifles correctness. This rifle looks bad, plain a simple.

[Peter Laidler]

I know it's going off the actual subject for a moment and not wishing to follow the red-herring line of thought. But, of all the hundreds of thousands of brand new container air-dropped Sten guns captured, where they fell, after the French resistance was fully compromised. Have any of those ever appeared with wermacht/nazi markings. I don't know, but I did examine about 4,000 siezed/bonded Stens prior to the little book being published. And I never saw one!

The captured air dropped guns were put into store and issued. As I understand it, these seized guns were used to equip the 'new' Norwegian Army in 1945

[Claven2]

Also if I have read correctly the M44 was stored in a crate since 1947 and the "commies" were too busy beating their rifles into plowshares to worry about faking anything. [...]

the history as told by the original owner is provable by paperwork, [...]

The real sad part is all the negative comments on both rifles has virtually destroyed any chance of these rifles getting a fair shake by collectors

1) You have no proof either of these rifles was crated in 1947. The Enfield was clearly not as it was FTR in 1952. The dealer AT NO TIME has claimed he can prove the m44 was crated in 1947, or at least he hasn;t in writing on a forum - only that he can prove it came to Canada in a pallet from Yugoslavia. He actually typed pallet on CGN - not crate.

2) paperwork which nobody has seen since he probably doesn't have it. He only has the importation records I'll wager. Even if the crate has 1947 stencilled on it, can you or he prove it wasn;t opened since 1947? $1000 is steep, but I'll take his bet for $100 in cash that he can't prove to me the M44 crate was packed in 1947 and not opened since.

3) The rifles are being publicly scrutinized for the first time. They are getting their fair shake, even if you do not agree with the results.

[villiers]

The Sten and the German Mauser copy (Gerät Neumünster) were issued to the Volkssturm (home guard) which was not a Wehrmacht unit. Their equipment towards the end of WWII was nondescript and these weapons were not likely to have been stamped in accordance with Wehrmacht regulations.

Gerät Neumünster:-

[Claven2]

Should you disagree with this statement then I think it is only fair you must take the $1,000.00 challenge John has put forward and prove this wrong.

Because someone offers a challenge that he knows most people can't afford to match in order to stifle debate, we are supposed to just all nod and agree the rifle is a rare legitimate capture? Is that truely your position?

I prefer to examine the facts to draw my conclusions.

The capture mark in question has a cross, not a swastika. It's eagle doesn't match eagles on any other german weapon and nobody can produce a photograpgh of any other weapin with an eagle that looks anything like that one. Beneath it, three numbers were individually stamped similar to a waffenampt, except, the genre of eagle in question is not a WaA eagle but rather a proof eagle that is poorly executed. It just does not match any of the known ways in which germans marked captured rifles. It does not match German markings at all. The Nazi symbol is a swastika, not a cross.

Put simply, there are more things pointing to it being a fake and only "mabye they..." and "what if..." statements supporting it being real. This is pretty shaky ground to justify paying $1000 for an FTR'd cadet rifle.

[Claven2]

The Sten and the German Mauser copy (Gerät Neumünster) were issued to the Volkssturm (home guard) which was not a Wehrmacht unit. Their equipment towards the end of WWII was nondescript and these weapons were not likely to have been stamped in accordance with Wehrmacht regulations.

Gerät Neumünster:-

but we are expected to believe (by the same dealer who sold this rifle) than a 1945 M44 was captured and marked with no fewer then 9 German eagles.

[Peter Laidler]

Ah yes Villiers, but they were CAPTURED AND STORED by the wermacht. Then presumably issued to the volkspeople by them. Yes?

I don't want to cloud the real issue with this side issue. I just toss it in as a further point to ponder.