1911 Spandau sn. 5688a… bad bolt?

[hale1940]

Welcome Horilka, it’s always nice when a seller is genuinely curious and has the integrity to take criticism seriously.

First, I want to say that there are number of members here, including some who have previously commented in this thread, who are very serious collectors/researchers/authors of German service Model 98’s. They devote a lot of time and energy to understanding these rifles, and are unfortunately very accustom sniffing out fakes and misrepresentations.

In terms of your rifle in particular, there are a few obvious issues, which have more or less been covered already.

1) as others have clearly illustrated, the font is bad. Its just not a period German font, and infact that style of font is one you see pop up on fakes (particularly K98k’s), quite often. Its some generic hardware store font.

2) look how the depth and finish of the font doesn’t match up with the letter block ‘a’. And if you look closely you can even see ghosts of the original serial inbetween the two 8’s.

3) the gas shield serial is wrong. During the imperial period they marked the gas shield with only the last two digits of the serial. The full serial was only added in later periods.

 

[Horilka]

Learnt a lot of new stuff. Can't really argue with most of it.
So, suppose the whole bolt serials were faked. How does one remove old serial on parts like safety flag with its curved surface? Or from slightly rounded cocking piece?
And how does repair arsenal serialization look like? Are there any reference rifles to look at?

P.S. I just looked at my 1917 Amberg and she still has only last two digits on the gas shield. When did they start applying full serial? I guess it also depends on factory, but in general - how late was it introduced?

 

[hale1940]

Here, have a look at this 1911 Spandau ‘c’ block. Its a matching example that was produced very close to yours in time frame.

1911 Spandau "c" block Factory Matching

Here's another Mike rifle and a pretty tough one to find this original and in this condition. I know Mike posted previously, but thought I would include updates and the barrel code given the dearth of examples from this year. The buttplate has a Mainz (6) stamp, though my only thought on the...

www.k98kforum.com

The 4 digit serials on smaller bolt parts became thing later in the Weimar or even Third Reich period. I can’t remember off the top of my head. But 2 digits on the smaller parts was pretty ubiquitous during the Imperial period. Not much variation in that, as it was something that was really dictated by the state.

I have a feeling your gas shield was likely ground and then the bad serial was just over stamped. Its also possible that when the person stamped a new serial the gas shield was an unnumbered armourers spare.

The important point though is that its clearly not work done in the Imperial/Weimar/Third Reich periods.

 

[Cyrano4747]

Learnt a lot of new stuff. Can't really argue with most of it.
So, suppose the whole bolt serials were faked. How does one remove old serial on parts like safety flag with its curved surface? Or from slightly rounded cocking piece?
And how does repair arsenal serialization look like? Are there any reference rifles to look at?

P.S. I just looked at my 1917 Amberg and she still has only last two digits on the gas shield. When did they start applying full serial? I guess it also depends on factory, but in general - how late was it introduced?

There are a bunch of ways people remove serials, some more skillful than others, but they all involve removing metal and re-finishing the part. That's another thing you develop an eye for. Parts that don't have the surfaces at the right place in relation to each other is a big one. For example there's a shelf on the bolt root near the SN that frequently gets obliterated when the old number is ground off. Grind marks and general thinning of parts, plus all the give away stuff that refinishing introduces.

It's something you can develop an eye for with a bit of study. Flip over to the Third Reich section of this board and you'll find that spotting faked rifles and ridiculing them is something of a hobby for some posters. There are (unfortunately) some good fakes out there, but a lot of them were also made 30 or 40 years ago with hardware store number stamps etc and can be spotted pretty easily with a bit of education. There are also a lot being made today that are fishing for low information buyers who don't know the big tells to look for.

It gets a lot worse if you push into the things with a particular Third Reich allure. SS weapons and sniper rifles, for example, are both absolute mine fields and it is very much buyer beware. Big money involved over there and a TON of fakes, you very much need to know your stuff or you'll get fleeced. Third Reich rifles in general are probably next in the list although legitimate ones can be had with a little study. Imperial era weapons are by far the least faked, although it happens.

 

[Cyrano4747]

Oh and to (partially) answer your question on repair arsenals, they are their own subject as well but there are some big patterns in there. I'm going to speak in broad generalities because this isn't my area, but you'll see both unnumbered armorer's replacement parts (likely done at the unit level) and more thorough overhauls done at the depot level. The latter would often involve renumbering parts, but the gun itself would also be marked with some stamps to indicate what depot did the work.

Here is one, for example, that was reworked:

1915 VCS 4674e Rastatt Rework

Hi Guys, I've been busy with work and extracurricular volunteer stuff, but still found some time to go after this one a couple weeks ago. This is a nice bookend to early VCS production, being toward the tail end of 1915. My other 1915 VCS is the earliest known and was built off a reclaimed...

www.k98kforum.com

Chris (who can absolutely be trusted to spot this kind of stuff) talks about both the depot markings on the rifle, as well as the fact that the grinding pattern on the bolt matches other known rifles that went through the same depot. So you have a combination of known markings pointing to a rework and the methods that the work used being consistent to other known examples that had the same thing happen. In a lot of ways that's similar to what I said above about spotting renumbered parts, only you're applying those same skills to work that was done 100 years ago rather than last week.

 

[chrisftk]

Hale and Cyrano; fantastic work here. I was tied up with work obligations, but you guys did a yeoman's job at handling this.

One thing that is very consistent with renumbered bolts is that Imperial SOP was to only renumber the bolt body, not the striker assembly. This was partially to evidence that the reworked rifle head spaced correctly and was safe to fire. Please also remember that the bolt body received a full four digit SN, small parts were only numbered with two digits. That would immediately disqualify the bolt on your example, as four digit numbering on those parts only happened later on Third Reich era stuff..

If the shroud, safety, firing pin and cocking piece are renumbered as well as the bolt body, I get suspicious. I have had a couple legitimate reworks with matching striker assemblies, but I think that is more of a case of the armorer getting lucky and grabbing a bolt with the right 2 digit SN.

When it comes to depot reworks, I would break down legitimate bolt body renumberings into a few broad categories:

1) Total scrubs (both the old SN and suffix removed) and new SN stamped.


2) Lazy scrubs (Old SN removed, but not the old suffix) new SN stamped

3) Line-out (old SN scratched out) new SN stamped on the bolt flat above or below the old.


4) line out with a twist ( old SN scratched out) New SN stamped on the ball of the bolt.


Of course, there's always a little bit of variability on these and some oddball one--offs. I have a couple rifles with bolts that were reused multiple times and have several remnants of SN's on them.


Feeling good about a re-numbered bolt something that you get more comfortable with after you've looked at a lot of these rifles. You never get 100%, but once you've seen enough, you will start to feel pretty confident as to what looks "right". While you can sometimes compare with other rifles from the same depot, even that is not absolute as we have witnessed variability even from the same facility.

I agree with the broad consensus here that the bolt on that 1911 spandau is bad. The font (the old "harbor freight" dies) and the use of four digit renumbering are dead giveaways. That shouldn't take away from the fact that the rest of the rifle looks righteous. Anything from '09 to '13 is worth getting if it's in decent shape. I applaud the seller coming on here to learn and not get defensive. Thank you for being willing to do that.