For those who likes a Swiss Gewehr 96/11

[gunner]

Hello Patrick, The Thurgau was my first thought by having a fast eye on the rifle. I`ll send you a bigger pic of it. Just a moment

Gunner

[gunner]

Here is the pic. But cant get it better.

Gunner

[gunner]

Patrick, the word is really THURBAL. Never heard this.

Gunner

[Patrick Chadwick]

The last letter really is an L - because of the square corner at bottom left. So no Thurgau. I give up (for the moment).

Patrick

[gunner]

Thank you, Patrick. Hope that your Swiss shooter has a chance to enlighten these puzzle.

Regards

Gunner

[Alfred]

Thr trouble with THURBAL is that it is annoyingly close to THURGAU - the only canton name that fits. THUR.A. PLease check the B and L again.

Patrick

Could be an archaic spelling, the "Germanic alphabet" went through some changes during the early 20th century.
German alphabet - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Patrick Chadwick]

Alfred, you have drawn a false conclusion fom the Wikipedia source.

The "went through some changes during the early 20th century" in Wikipedia refers to the SPELLING alphabet, i.e the German equivalent of Alpha, Bravo Charlie Delta etc. Not the actual letters that make up the aphabet.

Patrick

[Alfred]

Alfred, you have drawn a false conclusion fom the Wikipedia source.

The "went through some changes during the early 20th century" in Wikipedia refers to the SPELLING alphabet, i.e the German equivalent of Alpha, Bravo Charlie Delta etc. Not the actual letters that make up the aphabet.

Patrick

Actually there are several other sources you can look up that go into greater detail on alternative spellings and deletion of letters and such. Not that I'd know how the Swiss go about spelling place names, but one site mentions the deletion of a Germanic letter that looks like an oddly shaped upper case B with the upper part smaller than the lower, and changes in the rules of spelling, some letters only being used before or after certain other letters with the sound of the word or its meaning being altered. Some words no longer resemble other words and they go into these changes by comparing famous poems and such printed in three or more styles separated by a number of years. Complicated, and of no importance to us unless it explained anomalies in spelling.
example

Switzerland and Liechtenstein
The 'ß' character was gradually abolished in Switzerland and Liechtenstein from the 1930s onwards, and has now been completely replaced by 'ss'. It has been suggested that the increasing usage of typewriters has been a cause of the disappearance of 'ß'. As Swiss typewriters could be used by the country's German, French, Italian and Rumantsch speakers, keyboard space was limited if keys for all of the accented characters used in these languages were to be included and there was no room for a 'ß' key. After the Neue Zürcher Zeitung became the last Swiss German newspaper to stop using 'ß' in 1974, the character now only appears in a few publications that are aimed at the German-speaking market as a whole rather than at the domestic Swiss market.

The B like character they speak of doesn't really look like our uppercase B as the images on the linked page will show.
German Alphabet: Umlauts and 'ß' - Paul Joyce

PS
Much of the English language was not standardized as to spelling and definitions until the early 20th century. Spelling could vary from one region to another much less from one country to another. You can find odd spellings of common words in 19th and early 20th century works.
Some of my older Bibles have the 18th century style s that looks like a lower case f.

Just figured there may have been reason why the lettering on the stock doesn't match the modern spelling of a place name.

[Patrick Chadwick]

The end of the line for Thurbal?

No such town or village
No such personal name found in CH-telephone book
The large B after Thurbal could be ???
Canton markings: BE = Bern, BL = Basel, BS = Basel Stadt
As you see, the canton marking requires at least 2 letters in order to be unmbiguous.
I have just spoken with my Swiss friend, and he cannot suggest anything else.

So that is the end for the moment. Mystery unsolved.

Patrick

[gunner]

Thank you Patrick for your efforts. Try to find it out because mysterys are very interesting.

Best regards

Ulrich