Fake Garand Cartouche?

[Rick B]

Depending on who you ask will bring two different answers but we honestly know which it is.

It would be a fake. Rick B

[Patrick Chadwick]

Rick is rightly concerned about telling why he says it's fake, that just give the fakers better info for their next generation...

Wrong IMOH. The fakers know anyway, but rely on potential purchasers not knowing. Ignorance is not bliss, it is the prelude to expensive disappointment.

... Each time he exposes a fake it makes that whole generation of fakes and their stamp obsolete.

Right IMOH. Raising the threshold required to feed a fake into a knowledgeable market makes faking more difficult, hopefully to the point of not being worthwhile.

[Patrick Chadwick]

One of the cartouches is gone but you have the real deal, correct stamp and restamp it.

The stamp was in effect a acceptance certification document, and thus only to be applied by an authorized person after performing the requisite inspection or other action. It was equivalent to a stamp or signature on a paper document. Even if you have the original stamp, restamping a part is forgery, just as imitating that person's signature would be.

And if you refer to the parallel thread in the Carbine forum, you can see that regardless of the originality or otherwise of the stamp, the application on top of an old finish on an old piece of wood is (usually) apparent with a good eyeglass and a bit of experience. The internal inconsistency of the object betrays the faking.

I know I am repeating myself, but an original stamp, because of its documentary nature, is only genuine if it was applied by the authorized person at the correct time. Even if the original inspector were to appear in a time machine, with the original stamp, and restamp the carbine half a century after it was manufactured, that would STILL be faking, like going back in time and correcting the errors in an examination paper you wrote when you were at school.

I wish everybody would accept that there is NO way you can create an GENUINE ORIGINAL MARKING after decades. All you can do is reproduce, and are thereby faking. Weaselling arguments about "returning it to its correct original condition" are a delusion fostered by the "all correct" mania. And the "it was only for me" argument is one of the favourite defences presented by art forgers in court.

Sorry if this sounds like a bit of a rant, but this discussion comes up again and again and...

[WarPig1976]

I agree with you totally Patrick except the time machine part..
Let me play devils advocate. When car guys restore a car it's not called faking but restoring or some make clones of musle cars from the standard version and this is know by all and excepted. Is Alpaca Andy faking his M2 project or restoring it to its former glory? I point to Andy's project as an example of its ok to us to restore an M2 but not a rifles cartouches with the very stamps used on that particular stock even if its marked as such under the wood line as a RESTORATION. Would there be a market for "restored" rifles,,not faked to appear something it never was. I think so just look to Gibbs and Rock river 03A4's.

[Patrick Chadwick]

When car guys restore a car it's not called faking but restoring or some make clones of musle cars from the standard version and this is know by all and excepted.

I have a friend of 40 years standing who (now retired) actually made a living from supplying spares for classic and vintage cars, so I have some insight into the way of thinking. The difference is in the openness and aims. Vintage and classic car owners accept that a car is a machine, and like all machines has parts that wear and need to be replaced. Nobody expects an automobile from the 1920s to be running with the original (i.e. as delivered ex-factory) sparkplugs, oil filter, lightbulbs, tyres etc, etc. The first aim for most owners is that it runs, i.e. functions as intended. There is no shame or feeling of inadequacy in fitting a new sparkplug or filter! And the owners are quite open about the practical problems of keeping antique cars running. Very, very few have the money and space to simply keep non-functioning vehicles as decoration.

Gun collectors, on the other hand, appear to envisage a fantasy world in which the "correct" rifle has been kept in cotton wool since it came out of the factory, preferably never having been used. And heaven forbid that anyone like me should actually want to fire it! This attitude finds its ultimate expression in the preservation of rifles "in the wrap".

This virgin object then resides in a cabinet, or more likely in a rack in a basement, while the owner buys his 57th carbine and writes to this and other forums complaining that the prices have risen. As a shooter, this really irritates me, as the hoarding makes it difficult to find a shootable rifle at any price, let alone a reasonable one.

OK, that's my viewpoint, and I know that not everybody will agree with me - but I hope there are a few!

[Bob Seijas]

"an original stamp... is only genuine if it was applied by the authorized person at the correct time."

Oooh, I LOVE these discussions! So what about replacing that birch replacement stock with the proper WWII walnut stock having an original cartouche? Faking or restoration?

[Patrick Chadwick]

So what about replacing that birch replacement stock with the proper WWII walnut stock having an original cartouche? Faking or restoration?

That is "restoring it to the ex-factory configuration" but NOT "making it original". It was original when it was made, you cannot make it original again, but you can use original parts to put it back to the ex-factory configuration.

It is a falsification if you claim that it is as it came from the factory, when you know that is not true.

Using a phrase like "the proper walnut stock" implies that anything else is not proper. So what about the laminate stocks that were increasingly used in WWII? Are they not proper? "Proper". "correct" and "original" are all tricky words in this business. Many, many rifles are no longer as they left the factory, as the prime responsibility of an armorer is to keep the weapons functioning properly.****

Consider the following: Unlike Enfields and Mausers, US rifles did not usually have the bolt numbered to the rifle. And armorers may have swapped bolts to improve headspace. In accordance with their responsibility to keep the arms functioning properly.

IT IS THUS POSSIBLE THAT EVERY US RIFLE NO LONGER HAS THE BOLT WITH WHICH IT LEFT THE FACTORY, AND YOU CANNOT PROVE OTHERWISE.
SO EVERY US RIFLE MAY BE NON-ORIGINAL IN THE SENSE OF "The assemblage of components that left the factory".
Q.E.D.

All you can do is say "that is the version of the bolt that was being used at the time that rifle was being produced" - with the important caution, that in real factories, where interchangeable parts are the foundation of mass production, good usable parts are not normally thrown away, but instead the previous version would have been used up before refilling the bins with the new version. The result is in general a transitional period, rather than the clear version changes that people read out of collector books. To be fair, the books usually mention this, but many seem to ignore it.

I have a Garand, and recently published a target in the Competition section. Although, like everybody else, I sloppily describe it as an original 1943 Garand, all I or anyone else can really demonstrate is that it is an assemblage of components in versions that, according to the books, were being used around October 1943. Of course, it may have been assembled from these original components the day before I bought it.

Who knows?

**** Apologies to anyone who read this and was puzzled. I seem to have wandered off the Garand and started discussing the K98k! Perhaps because I am very conscious off them as being favorites for fakers.
- But I stand by the rest !!!

[Bob Seijas]

Laminate stocks?

[Patrick Chadwick]

Laminate stocks?

Beechwood laminated with resorcinol glue (a phenolic resin, I think) that gives these stocks a characteristic reddish appearance. Some experimental stocks were even made completely from resorcinol - see Ball, 5th Ed. P203. Ball has plenty of photos showing the laminated stocks. Walnut was hard to come by, impossible in the quantity required for wartime needs, and a good laminate is stronger and more stable than solid wood.

[WarPig1976]

Ok, the Really tough question!!! Blonde? Or Brunette? And if a Brunette dyes her hair blonde... Is she faking??...