Enfield No.2 revolver made in Vietnam

[mike16]

The british and Austrailians entered Viet Nam after Japan surendered. British officers led Japanese troops in policing Veit nam until the french could send over enough troops. The Japanese troopes were issued british weapons. Viat namese were as good or better than others at replicating weapons. Communist gerillas were all through out veit nam and not just in the north

[avroe]

wow, nice piece.

Whats the ballpark on the value of something like this?

[jmoore]

I'm going to guess US$10,000, OR LESS! Oddities such as this revolver don't really have a "market" value. It's more of an individual collector's passion thing. There might be one guy on the planet who will pay stupid money for what may be a one-off, but what happens when the next ten show up, due to all the excitment? I'd guess then the market value on the last one sold would be US$800, or rather less. Plus, the fakers will start piling on, hoping to cash in on what would otherwise be a $100 revolver.

So, in other terms, who knows?

[Mohawk]

If It had the DD603 and DD603-1 paperwork. I would say this pistol could bring what ever You asked for it. I have a large coloection of jungle workshop weapons, and have never even heard of a VC enfield revolver. I am amazed and a bit surprised....Saigon became Ho Chi Minh City after 1975 when the North Took it. It had been known as Saigon all through the American experience there....Not Just during French Colonization ...just to clarify....

[A square 10]

i missed that part - i was looking at the strategic location of the pitting and so forth , very interesting topic , im finding it worth returning frequently

[Johnny Peppers]

This one was captured early on, in the 1965/66 time period. It is .45 ACP and made of sheet metal formed and brazed together. No locking lugs and the barrel is not rifled. Magazine is also hand made, and the grips are buffalo horn. It had been fired, as the receiver was coming apart in the front where it had been brazed together.
The maker gave up on the safety lock, as he cut the hold in the receiver but made it no farther.

[badash5946]

I just found this thread. Those are some really nice pistols! The first one, the revolver, is probably rarer than the .45. (I also have a .45 jungle made 101st Abn bringback from the same early war period. Mine differs in that it uses a US Colt barrel) There were a small number of custom made pistols in South Vietnam, as evidenced by the Cao Dai sect's .45, a very rare and highly prized collectable. I've collected Vietnam bringback weapons for 25 years and I have only seen two of them. The price for one of them is unknown to me as they so rarely change hands. For the .45 pictured here as well as the Enfield revolver, my estimate if they had capture papers would be as the poster specified, from $1000 up to maybe $1500 or even slightly more.
I collect mostly bringback snipers (tho they are getting to be nearly impossible to find lately!). One of my favorites is a Winchester 70 with a US M84 scope, as was written about earlier in the thread. Mine also has import documents as the soldier had to use those in lieu of capture papers due to it being of US manufacture. It also has an original factory letter stating when it was manufactured and shipped to the US Navy. These were in fact used by our forces in Vietnam, not just given to tribal chiefs, and I do also have a photo of a GI on patrol who is carrying one.

[smellie]

Anybody here read Vietnamese? I don't (I have enough trouble with English and Vulgarian), but I'm pretty sure the markings on that revolver say that it was made in a Cong workshop.

I can't think of a much better weapon to make in an improvised workshop. The design just lends itself to surreptitious manufacture so very well. I just hauled a brand-new 1933 out, along with Mister Moore & Wright, my friendly pal Mike... as in micrometer. The entire barrel assembly is made from stock which is .508" thick; you could use standard half-inch or 13mm, either one, and come up with a finished barrel which could be made to work... and for a minimum of machine-tool time, given that you have machine tools to start with. The FRAME is .575" stock, which is 14.6mm..... or just a bit heavier than 9/16". If you were starting with junkyard materials or raw material with a lot of scale still on it, you could start off with 5/8" and clean it down a bit with a mill or surface grinder. CYLINDER diameter is 1.45" precisely; start with inch-and-a-half or 37mm stock. Likely hot-rolled nominal inch-and-a-half would be close: it shrinks when it cools. Get all the parts to fit and the only special tool you still need is a shilling to take it apart with.

Am I nuts?

Or is this thing suited to knock-off production in the back room at Comrade Ho's Friendly Service Station, Fish-sauce Manufactory and Arsenal?

Just thinking. (I do that on rare occasions, you know.)

One thing I must say, and that is that that critter is a wonderful piece, as is the knock-off .45.
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[RobSmith]

Well, the VC were known to be able to reproduce just about any weapon they could get their hands on in a variety of jungle workshop, but I agree that the "made in Vietnam" makings in English don't seem to make any sense. Just a wild guess here but it <may> have been made for VC use initially, but then somehow ended up in the hands of a legitimate exporter post-war. The "made in Vietnam" marking would have had to be added in order to comply with certain export/import regulations.

[smellie]

The "MADE IN...." marking looks contemporary with the rest of the gun.

I'm thinking it's Cong propaganda aimed at BOTH sides.

To the Colonial Power (France): "See what WE can do! YOU don't have a chance!"

To the Cong itself: "Nothing can stop us! We don't NEED their heavy industry; we can MAKE what we need!"

It would also say a few things to China, which, later, became a BIG supplier of equipment to the VC and tended to try to overshadow the actual VC/NVA leadership. China was saying things like "Raise high the bright red banner of the thoughts of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung! All Imperialists and their running-dogs and lackeys are Paper Tigers!" nd Mao himself was saying things like, "China can lose 300 million people in a war, and come out of it stronger than she is now!"

In the Universities here, we were hearing things like, "Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh: we know who is gonna win!".... and the Peace marches, started by what Lenin called "willing idiots" suddenly were being LED by guys lke Nick Ternette (in Winnipeg, I saw it, I knew him) waving a #%&&@*& VC FLAG!

The right kind of propaganda can be very effective if you know how to use it. That was one of the US weak points in that War: the US did not understand how to combat the Commie propaganda, this because both sides were using the SAME WORDS but with ENTIRELY DIFFERENT MEANINGS. One example: there was no war. Oh, WE might have thought there was a war, but, to the Commies, it was "an active campaign of peace". But what is Peace? You know, I know, WE think it is a situation in which there is a peaceful civilian government, rule of law, various freedoms, all those things. But to a Communist: "Peace is whatever suits the purposes of the Communist Party".

But this revolver, I think, is contemoraneous with the French Colonial Occupation of Viet-Nam following the end of World War 2 and I would think that it predates the US involvement in that War. The English-language markings would have been for the French and for us. Remember, Comrade Ho was OUR ALLY against the Japs and he wanted Viet Nam independent; he was right TICKED when the French came marching back in with their flags waving and their bands playing, just as if they had actually fought in the war or something. (Of course, close to 70% of the Legion were former Waffen-SS, but they had been on the other side.) What better way to show your strength than to start manufacturing the weapons which had actually thown out the hated Japanese occupiers...... and building them in your own workshops?

Just my maundering mind. I'll put it back in its cage.
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