[The 1941 Krieghoff just had the chamber date removed & changed and then it was refinished. I'm sure the owner assured Mr. Gibson that it was 100% original.]
Brad, this is just the type of thing that has turned me off huge on the German collectable market. Bleach. Finding any sort of real item at a fair price is becoming next to impossible. And like I said in my opening post, you will be expected to drop down a lot of money no matter if they know it’s a fake or not.
Let me point out that these remarks are not directed at you as a dealer personally. Saying that, what has really started to honk me off in the past few years is some of the things that I have seen at gun shows, and heard about. You see, most, if not all of the people who are really taken hard are enthusiastic beginners who come into this wide-eyed and eager. More than once, at a gun show I’ve seen 18-19 year old kids who are ready to drop down large amounts of their own money, or their parent’s money, on anything that looks close to real. Such as a fake WW2 German rifle or pistol. They do not peruse this or other Web sites, or study collectable books like you, and like the many other wise collectors on this site do. One can just imagine their reaction when they find out they’ve been cheated huge.
You can just say, hey, let the buyer beware, right? We were all tenderfoot kids once, right? Hogwash. Not only is this sort of uncaring attitude morally and ethically wrong, it gives the whole industry a bad name. With all the anti-Second Amendment people out there today, the last thing we need is dissention among the law-abiding gun owners of this great country.
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