.22 Nr 5

[Patrick Chadwick]

That's the healthy thing about shooting! It gets you out in the fresh air in weather conditions where no sensible person would dream of talking a walk.

---------- Post added at 10:06 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:00 PM ----------

Lucky them! Now at 520.

Cancel that!. Now 560 euros. What was the refrain in that `60s song? - "When will they ever learn?"

[Patrick Chadwick]

I think I mentioned some time ago, the old Battalion training regiments were permitted to change the butts and shortened No4 fore-ends just so that recruits could assimilate the hold and feel of the service rifle and not the hold and feel of a target rifle.

Like this:

Attachment 49714

The best training rifle ever.

[Peter Laidler]

Yep...., that's how they were.

[Patrick Chadwick]

"1" added on to the number with a punch from a different set,

So, some of you are wondering, how can I be so sure that the 1 is from a different set of punches?

Answer:
The 364 numbers have serifs, like this 364
but the 1 does not have the serif "foot". It is 1, not 1
I.e. the person stamping the 1 did not use the same set of punches as the person who stamped the 364.

To spot this and other discrepancies, you do not need to be an Enfield expert. In fact, you do not need to know anything about guns at all. You just need to spot the discrepancy in style between the numbers. And to do that, you must consciously look at the shape. But as soon as you say "oh, that's a one", you are thinking of the interpretation of that shape, not the shape itself.

Likewise, once you have been fed the idea that the first two letters are R B, where the seller leads you to this interpretation, you are diverted into thoughts of plausiblity of the number series for a BSA rifle etc, forgetting to switch off your model-specific interpretation for a moment and simply look at the first letter, which is, to within a micrognats whisker, the same as the second. At least, as far as that which is visible is concerned.

So if the 2nd letter is a B, then the 1st letter can also be a B.
NOW you can activate your model-specific expertise and say "but BB would be a perfectly normal prefix for a 1945 No.5 from BSA-Shirley, and no fancy explanation is required" (Occam's razor).

[Patrick Chadwick]

Unrepeatable offer now stuck at 560 euros for 3 days. It would be reassuring to know that the bidders have sobered up, but I suspect it is not so. With about 4600 hits, be prepared for lurkers making much higher bids in the last seconds, taking it up into the 1k class.

Anyone else care to make a forecast?

[Promo]

With the link here the item got more clicks and attention than it should deserve.

[Patrick Chadwick]

I see it differently. It thoroughly deserved to be studied as an example of the way dubious items are presented on online auctions.

[villiers]

All depends on what price might be placed by someone just wanting to shoot .22 lr from a LE No. 5. All the collector mumbo jumbo might well be totally beside the point.

[Gnr527]

Unwarranted attention possibly, but suggest that is far outweighed by the knowledge gained from this discussion?

[Patrick Chadwick]

All depends on what price might be placed by someone just wanting to shoot .22 lr from a LE No. 5. All the collector mumbo jumbo might well be totally beside the point.

That is an interesting point. The price has stuck at 560 euros for some days. I estimate that that is round about the maximum that someone wants to pay for shooting .22 from a No.5. It's similar to the price one would pay for a No. 8. The "collector mumbo jumbo" is what might drive the price very much higher.
As to "collector mumbo jumbo", it seems to me to be something that has an especially enormous price-driving effect in the USA. Our colleagues on the .30M1 carbine forum, for instance, put up thousands of posts concerned with fiddly aspects on the lines of "is screw version X correct for a carbine numbered 123456 made by Z in 194x on the 32nd of Octebruary, probably early afternoon?" and seem to be seriously worried because their screw might be version W or Y. And quote sales prices that over here just seem lunatic. So it is no great surprise that the carbine market over there appears to be full of industrious fakers.

Over here, where there is a severe brake on collecting for collecting's sake, a .30M1 carbine is worth around 300 plus/minus as a shooter, period. And as a competition shooter, I must say that I find prices here more reasonable here than in other countries, because the inflationary effect of collectors accumulating rooms full of guns that they will never seriously shoot is much reduced. It amuses me sometimes to read posts complaining of the rise in prices and the numbers of fakes, when all some of the complainers need to do to discover the cause is to look in the mirror.