Search results

Well the thing here so that there is no story. He throws out a “best guess” and I wonder who would care in the slightest what anyone’s best guess on anything would be?

Like to know the suffix on that gun. If earlier than s I would be highly doubtful of those grips and magazine types. Actually I’m very doubtful of the grips anyway as they look much to dinged up and worn for that guns finish.

I agree. In would say that probably not many or any on Crete in May 1941 as that was very early to see many German sniper rifles in use, but I’ve seen them in plenty of LW HG Division and FJ division photos in Italy late 1943-45, Soviet Union same time frame and 1944 Normandy.

The army had their own air defense assets, basically a speciality of the artillery branch. I believe that divisions had a Bn of air defense as part of the organization.

Those grips look well fitted and set in to that pistol. Are they in fact mismatched numbered or just un numbered? If the latter they may be original to the pistol. Personally unless the letter block is “s” or later I would be very skeptical if black grips would have been or could have been...

Very interesting flag patch assembly. There is insignia on there from every service in the Wehrmacht. Army, navy, luftwaffe and W-SS. It ranges from Reichswehr or very early third Reich era through the very last ditch end of war period printed insignia. It also includes some private purchase...

If it has in fact been shellaced it can be easily and harmlessly removed in under 30 minutes with just some clean cloths and liberal amounts of denatured alcohol. It will not show a trace that it was ever there. I think that the stock color is fine and interesting enough the German sniper film...

The last two sentences above are particularly important to understand. With some study and a decent sample group of legit matching optics (mounts on the original scope that is) to rifles, one can get some pretty good estimates of the correct scope serial number range for each rifle serial range...

Sling probably on the rifle since issue as many of these Kar98a slings were used on the first 98ks. This sling could well date to pre WWI era with brass fittings.

I’d go with the natural. The truth is most 08 holsters made prior to 1919 were in some shade of brown leather ranging from fairly light to darker with a reddish hue. Many were dyed on the front side particularly, during the war but the dye or maybe for some polish (black) did not take well...

Definitely an arsenal or period (1920s probably) workshop conversion of a LP08 holster. I can not help with the top marking but the middle one is to the 10th field artillery regiment. You can look that unit up and find out the Division and corp it was assigned to and the campaigns. In 1916 the...

Sometimes period original is not all matching but it seems with most the All Matching wins.

Hey it’s all matching. What more can anyone want?

I think that it would be worth having GT take a look at. I suspect that it can be fixed.

I agree. The mag should fit very nicely and if it doesn’t fit especially when tried with a few different guns it tells me that it has been tampered with at some point. The tolerances are very unforgiving with Luger magazines. These type Haenel Schmeisser mags are widely regarded as among the...

WWII holsters placed into service by Austria fairly early after the war were routinely reinforced like this one. I looked at many many dozens in the late eighties P08, P38 and P35b from Austria and the P.38 holsters particularly were reinforced with these type rivets. The KM also used rivets...

I agree but will say every type of German cloth insignia that I can think of has some known manufacturing variations and most have many. One narrow example is LW flight badges of which each design probably has 10 or more manufacturers variations known. My biggest question about German sniper...

I’m aware of the controversy around versions embroidered on feldgrau wool and to a large extent the controversy about any and all known versions. I think that your base looks very credible and I don’t dismiss it. If we just went by estimated 4X military used scope production excluding the ZF4 we...

I think that the disconnect at least on my end may be how “rank and file” are viewed. We have a difficult time in most cases knowing what the true role or even the unit was or is when seeing random photos of German troops wearing this smocks. One exception is when they are also holding a scoped...

Very nice. I wonder if the barrel and rear toggle link was replaced at the time of this rework or much earlier. I’ve seen examples of 3rd Reich era artillery conversions where the rear sight was actually dovetailed into the original rear toggle link and done so well it was difficult to tell...