Broomhandle help needed
 

I have a chance to buy this broomhandle and have always wanted one, but really know next to nothing about them. The man selling this has kind of an idea what he wants, but before we discuss price, I wanted to see what "type" this one is and what your idea of value range it would be. He isn't in a hurry to sell or doesn't need the money, but will sell if we come to an agreement. So, any help would be much appreciated He took the pictures which came out pretty well I believe. I looked it over today and it looks in really nice condition. It was handed down from his grandfather who purchased it overseas he believes and many yeas ago, probably in the 20's or there abouts.
Dave

All the numbers on the gun match from what we could tell including the grips. The stock doesn't match. Here are more pictures.
Dave

more pictures

last of the pictures. Thanks in advance for any help or advice you may give.
Dave

It's a Mauser made in 1915. Although it's made at wartime, it carries pre-war features. So in collecting world, people call this "pre-war commercial", or "pre-war small ring hammer".

This gun looks OK from pictures. The bolt was cleaned, probably to remove some light rust.... some minor pits on the top of bolt handle. Not a big problem. Come with mismatched stock, sanded and cracked. Harness is Asian style.

The value..... first, the context. In C96 world, four variations are most common. They are Prewar Small Ring, Wartime Production (both 7,63 and 9m/m), Postwar Bolo, and 1930. Reason is simple, Mauser made ~1 million semi-auto C96, 98% are covered by those four variations. That's the reason common C96's value is judged by condition (Location for house = Condition for C96). Wartime 9m/m (a.k.a. Red 9) demands higher premium, not because it's rare, but more people collect it. Specific to this one, 85%, a little more than $1000 on GB, adding the stock, total ~$1300.

[Edit] Looks like the "supporting line" of 80% condition common C96 is $1000 on the market. In stock market, if a ticker symbol drops below its supporting line, it will free fall for a while until it finds its next supporting point (if there is one). Unlike ticker symbols, guns are not supposed to drop to "de-listed" level because it's still a useful item that can fulfill some needs - looking, shooting, remembering, hanging on wall like paints, etc. It's a solid thing.

Alvin, thank you so much. That is just what I was looking for and was very informative.
Dave

Bore looked pretty good to me. I didn't have a bore light, but used my thumbnail to get light in there.
Dave

Saw 3 - 4 Brooms in a local gun show yesterday.

A prewar commercial with stock. Gun is in good shape 90-95% (by glimpse) and stock was revarnished (don't know matching or not). Asking $2300.

A Flatside Large Ring w/o stock. This is a relatively rare variation. I could meet 40 excellent common C96s before I see a 85% Flatside in the market place. I looked this one in my hands for a couple of minutes -- original, external number matches, bore is fair (marred). Asking $2050. Unfortunately, the bore is no good.

A Chinese Hanyang Arsenal made 1930 copy w/o stock. I don't know much about those but it's very black. Asking $1450.

There is another Mauser, but I forgot what it is. Probably a reblued Bolo.

Definitely possible. Back some time ago, I acquired a 98% one with mint bore and mismatching stock for $1500, shipping included. If accumulating C96s, some guns/rigs will come at good price. Most won't because of my "3D" or at least "2D" requirement. But after all, I found I love them equally not matter they came to me cheap or expansive.

BTW, why M30 is special.... isn't it just a C96 made in 1930s ?

Thanks for the info and other comments. I think they are neat looking guns, but the luger is still my favorite, but have to have a broomhandle.
Dave

It might nnot bee too pertinent, butt here in Itaaly the "average" price for a "Prewar Commecial" with his own matching original stock all in very good condition would be about Euro 2500,00

My research on C96s would suggest your serial number range would put it at 1913 or early 1914 as a Prewar Commercial.

1913 is impossible. A small group of ~100 C96 were factory marked 1914 on the left panel, s/n in 179,xxx.

By sales number, 194,031 C96 from 1897 to 1914 (not counting carbine). 55,000 instances sold in 1914 alone, twice of 1913 sale volume. That implies the demand was very high and inventory was very low at that period of time. More likely, this one was made in 1915, or at earliest, end of 1914.

I think I got my info about its date from a member on the forum as I really don't know much about these guns. Thanks for the comments and information. The guy I got it from years ago said his dad brought it back from when he was in China in the 1920's. I know buy the item, not the story, but that is what the guy said and it had been handed down to him from his dad. Here are some pictures of the stock as requested.
Dave

As far as I know some serial number ranges were skipped by MAUSER so that somehow later production guns were given some of the s/n that had skipped before.
The whole serial number/date of production thing is far from being certain.
IMHO

I also heard the theory. But in the era without computer management, going back and forth on numbers and keeping track of them was not as an easy task as we thought today. And, if factory indeed spent extra effort on doing that, what did they want to achieve? Belfort & Dunlap indicated Mauser might want to hide the fact that the gun did not sell well in its early years so the factory skipped s/n. But that reason did not sound likely. Continue production or not depended on board decision, and the board was not fooled by s/n.

There was also physical sample evidence. For example, If we look at those late 20CH, why did it have 1-10 sight leaf and round-tip extractor which were supposed to be phased out by then. I agree there are some myth around those, but that was not strong enough to indicate s/n skipping.

Major skipping, from what we saw today, happened only twice. One was 5000 skipped in the main trunk of s/n due to Italian Navy contract was separately numbered. Another large skipping was roughly from 74x,xxx to 800,000 to "celebrate" the birth of new generation of 1930. Other than that,,, small tracking errors was not impossible, but no major skipping.