A Productive Saturday

[Aragorn243]

Yard sale season has officially started. Today was a bust until I got to the last house on the end and found a Victory Series Puzzle of the "Battle of Guadalcanal" for a $1. Produced in 1943, the usual propaganda type picture with tanks, jeeps, planes and explosions without a Jap soldier in site. Then it was off to the auction from hell to look at the worst selection of military firearms I think they ever had. Beat to crap, no bolts, no rifling, cut down. Before I left I spotted an interesting knife with those distinctive Spanish looks, similar to my recent sword purchase and the WWII Bolo Bayonet. Turned out to be a Spanish 1907 Artillery knife/short sword in excellent condition with it's scabbard. Got a time for it to be auctioned and headed off to a nearby Gun Show, met up with Mike, helped him ID a cut up 1905 Spanish carbine. And then picked up a British Turtle no IV helmet for $20. 1952 which is post war but still a decent example. Back to the auction and watched six guys bid up the knife. I waited till they were done and put my bid in and that was it, they were done. Brought the knife home and the Postal carrier pulls up with a box that turns out to be a WWII US helmet shell that I won on ebay a few days ago. Four military items from four different sources in one day.

[browningautorifle]

Sounds like a good deal, a good day's haul of toys.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Busy weekend .Good work indeed.
Glad I am not competing with you.

[Aragorn243]

Here's my little haul:



I like how even that deep into the war they still stylized the tanks, etc into something we never had.

US helmet on the left, British on the right.

Knife is mostly unsharpened. Held in scabbard by a mechanism similar to a Garand bayonet.

[browningautorifle]

The blade's very interesting, never seen one like that. The drawings were done by artists probably at speed and with minimum attention to detail.

[Aragorn243]

The knives aren't common from what I can find out. They were issued to engineers and artillery troops. Almost too small for a machete but makes a large knife. I was surprised that only the curved portion is sharpened, the flat portion of the blade is flat, not even close to being sharp. Probably wasn't used. This is the blade that their later bayonets were based on although this is larger than the bayonet. Handle has a good feel to it. Fits the hand well.

[Sentryduty]

The tank is a very good sketch of a M3 Lee or the M3 Grant depending on country of service.

Offset main gun, small AT gun in a 360° turret with a MG in the cupola.

[Aragorn243]

The tank has to be an M3 and I guess it isn't really that bad a representation. The picture has it all though, paratroopers, bombers, fighters, tanks, jeeps, very busy, very patriotic.

[Aragorn243]

A productive Sunday this weekend started off picking up a very nice tiger striped Chilean 1912 Mauser long rifle and finished it with a US 3 inch field gun casing modified to a blank round complete with a primed 45-70 casing in place. Got some contact information from the person with the casing for some possible future items.

Rifle has beautiful metal except for one nasty scratch on the floor plate. All numbers match including the cleaning rod. Very nice looking stock that has more dings than I like but still pretty sharp. Has the original quick release sling attachment but no sling. Bore has not seen many rounds, crisp, deep rifling with no dirt or rust. Probably one of the nicest condition wise in my collection.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Your flea market/garage sale success stories insired me to stop at a local garage sale this weekend on a whim. Looked around and not much of interest other than a pretty nice camera tripod for $3. Things were a bit slow and the folks were very nice and we talked for a few minutes only to find out that the woman & her late husband were both retired Airforce. I asked if they had any military items that did not have senemential value to which she replied " I threw it all away". My heart sank at that and I was about to leave with my trypod when she asked me to wait a moment. She came back with a box full of Airforce rank & unit insignia & patches she had not disposed of. You just never know.