Hi Bob in OH,
I've been out of the collecting market for a while. Kind of getting "poised" for the future. So when I found a couple of G43s at the last Reno Gun Show, I hadn't bothered to prepare and got caught off-guard as to what to look for. I made a couple of mistakes.
The gun was being offered by an acquaintance of my father's. He said, "take it to anybody and let me know what they say about price". Being unprepared, I took it to someone who I thought should have known these guns who proceded to say the gun looked good but was "a little high" at $3,000. Since getting the gun, I have found it is pretty much a parts gun with no 2 Serial #s matching (well, the 2 bolt locking lugs match with each other!), and the stock sanded with an "R" for post-war use on it. Even the site hood is not right. At least the butt plate is authentic.
The bottom line is, I got buck fever and saw the gun I wanted it to be, not the gun it was, and then went looking for a way to talk myself into the purchase. A classic set of mistakes. Be sure that it won't happen again. A little $$$ is often a great way to learn, because you don't forget those lessons.
My goal was to get a righteous gun as a reference source for study and learning. I don't mind paying a hefty premium for that, since I can then hold something and really study it for future reference. The problem with this gun is, there is so much I can't use for reference, and the nature of the gun casts aspersions on absolutely every piece. So now I can't assume any of it is righteous unless I can prove to myself that it truly is - such as the butt plate which has the red primer and a spring with 5-windings on each side for the hinged door. I know this is a real butt-plate, but the sight hood is a 98k, so now I don't know what a true G43 site hood looks like. The stock is sanded so I have no reference what an unsanded stock should look and feel like.
On and on!
FWIW, I knew the bolt and carrier did not match the receiver, but I thought I was getting a gun as if straight from the battlefield, as the bolt groups often don't match the rest of the gun. But the number on the stock under the butt plate does not match the receiver, and really nothing in the bolt group matches each other. I was lead to believe this gun came from a collector who had it a long time, and I read into that what I wanted to - that it was a fairly righteous gun with a matching bolt-group that did not match the rest of the rifle. Now I can see that this gun was just a parts gun someone put together to make it look righteous.
I surely can't fault the buyer who allowed me to ask anyone I wanted to ask. I looked for Mike Krause but I couldn't locate him. I should have waited for him to come back. Instead I asked someone else who turned out to be unreliable.
My fault 100%. And a $1,000 lesson that will prove useful in the future.
I am sure there are others here who wish their most expensive lesson was only $1,000. I'll learn... ;-)
Isn't this all part of the Fun? LOL
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