Contract mausers info

[sdh1911]

Does anybody know where I can find out the amount of contract mausers out there, perhaps a book or web site?SDH

Information

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[Claven2]

The total amount? Think Millions.

The only real book that covers these broadly is "Mauser: Military Rifles of the World" by Robert Ball. ISBN-10: 0896892964.

Make sure you get the revised 4th edition.

[sdh1911]

I do have that book, when I get home I'll check the addition. I've been seeing a lot of contract Mausers and wonder how these fellows come up with pricing if they don't know how many were made. I would think 1 of 1,000 would be far more valuable than 1 of 1,000,000 and so on. This could be a tuff one. SDH

[Claven2]

Well, there's a quality factor as well. The "cream of the crop" for South American Mausers are the unissued 1909 Argentine, the unissued 1908 Brazilian and the unissued 1935 Oberndorf Brazilian.

Those three models in unissued condition will almost ALWAYS bring the most money because the construction quality was so good.

Then there are some "cult classic" south American mausers that also do well at sale such as the Mexican M1910 small-ring 98. Not many left though because gunsmiths just LOVED those actions for building compact Mauser sporters.

Or the ex-South African Chilean M95's...

Collecting these can get as expensive as collecting US arms

[green]

The scarcity of an arm is not determined by the number produced but the number available on the collector's market. For example hundreds of thousands of the Turkish M1890, 93 and 03 rifles were made but an original unmodified one is scarce.

[sdh1911]

I just recently got a Chilean M95 and then set about trying to find out how many were made. This seemed easy enough, until I started looking for the data. I just can't find the numbers. There is no problem with the Swedish or Finnish guns, heck even the Russians give us some numbers. I can't figure out what is the problem with contract guns-SDH

[WW2GURU]

I just purchased an unissued 1935 mauser yesterday. Came with the factory target and matching bayonet. Missing the muzzle cap and sling though. Its an
absolutely stunning rifle.