I would think it's legit. Putting crest on C96 was not a common practice for Mauser. But this raising area on the left side was obviously designed for crest stamp. Earlier Turkish had crest there... if saying there were also a few dealer samples with America Eagle, that's not too surprise. C96 was imported into America relatively late. From sample study, #2194 and #2364 timing sounds right, and they are close enough. The gun itself also looks legit.

This one, along with the one from Sturguess both look legit to me. Not sure this one's provenance. Current seller probably got it from Schroeder.

If seller could lower the price to $3500, I will stretch myself a little bit and buy it. Gun like this is special interest item, only dedicated C96 collectors will consider it.

It will arrive on Monday. Hope it's good. Cost me $1800. Better be good. Risk is final sale, no return.

Not news. But indeed earned a little bit money on this one. Of course, still takes years ahead to realize the profit. At this cost level, I am very willing to buy a few more :) Just need to find the sellers.

Dare to compare with the following gunbroker.com one, I would say mine is in a little bit better shape, 0.5% better? Condition is very close. No harness, but I can do lower, discounting that harness out.

vs this: http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...Item=491710740

By Bolo is probably close to 8.15mm... Just give it a few more years. :D

I don't have a fixed goal at this moment. Some guns that I'm acquiring now cannot even compare with the ones that I sold in the past (from condition point of view), but they come very cheap, I cannot resist the lure :)

Back about 5 or 6 years ago, I saw one M1930 for sale and I told another guy "buy this one, you won't regret". He did it. It's still in his collection. It's in great shape except (1) no stock (he added an aftermarket stock & harness later); (2) a few nail punching signs on receiver. Otherwise, great one. $1200. Not easy to find at this price level these days though.

But he ran out of 7.63mm ammo, I asked him, "do you want to sell it? sell it to me" .. "no. not now".

Alvin, did they ever convert existing Broomhandles to .30 Luger?

I don't think so. I have never met one.

In 1920s, Chinese warlords picked Broomhandles for a few reasons: (1) Most Lugers for exporting in 1920s were .30 Luger caliber, the cartridge is weaker than 7.63mm; (2) Luger's major role was a self-defense pistol, Broomhandle was designed more towards combat pistol, almost all of them coming with shoulder stocks. There were already many self-defense pistols over there, from FN 1900 to Ruby, all cheaper than Luger. It's hard for DWM to compete with other European gun makers in the self-defense pistol domain. And Mauser did not have much competition until Spanish came, but Spanish gun makers production capacity was only a fraction of Mauser's; (3) Luger had higher cleaning and ammo quality requirement than Broomhandle.

So, I doubt neither factory nor major historical user ever converted Broomhandles to .30 Luger caliber. Of course, private practice in US is possible.

At some point I plan on aquiring a decent shooter grade bolo. 7.63 ammo is difficult to come by it seems, and I don't reload so....perhaps a conversion may be in order. I very much like the .30 Luger cartridge, I wonder what such a conversion would entail.

There was a few gunsmiths doing relining business. You may want to try this one:

http://www.redmansrifling.com/relining.htm

People had positive feedback on him. Sounds like he uses a special kind of glue to fix the liner inside. The charge is reasonable too. Back a week ago, there was a seller listing a reblued conehammer, I thought if it's around $1k, I would buy it to give redman a try to see how good his craftmanship is, why not, the bore is already a smooth bore and the gun was reblued. But the gun did not come. Not sure he does .30 Luger liner or not, but should be easy for him.