Cut away Broom on Ebay

[cdmech]

I'd love to have one of these, if money didn't matter.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Mauser-...-/281153654067
Marc

[Zorba]

I'm surprised Flea-Bay hasn't pulled it, legally a "non-gun" or not.

[alvin]

Gun world has three crazy things:

-- Cut away
-- Miniature
-- Engraved

In the long run, collector needs one of above in collection

[cdmech]

Is the seller's description accurate?

"These "Box Cannons" were imported by Federal Ordinance in El Monte,
Ca. after purchasing a number of surplus WWII full auto Mauser pistols in Germany in the early 80's.
The "machine pistols" were not importable due to their full auto feature so the frames were scrapped
and new (semi-auto) frames made in China in accordance to Federal laws.The guns were re-assembled
with the new frames and sold commercially with the original Mauser 10 or 20 round detachable magazines.
Subsequently, a very few were cut-away to show the inner workings and this is number 12."

Marc

[rhuff]

Now that would be a great item to own and display......as you say, "if money was no object". Someone will come along and purchase it, because it is a non-gun and can be shipped most anywhere in the USA.

[saab-bob]

Marc
The story about Fed Ord is correct. They also made some long barrel Mauser carbines and also produced a few engraved C96's. They where in business back in the 70's or 80's. The heyday of surplus Chinese imports.
A good friend of mine used to do business with them.
Their Broomhandles with a detachable magazine where fairly popular.
Bob

[alvin]

Originally Posted by cdmech

Is the seller's description accurate?

Probably very accurate. On picture, the hammer was from a selective-fire pistol.

Brian of Federal Ord visited Beijing in early 1980s, with the help of a Hong Kong middleman (a surplus arm broker), he imported many C96s into the U.S. Not a few hundred, not a few thousand. Even about 20-30 years later, at least 70% circulated C96s on gunbroker.com were probably imported by him. He must made lots of money in this.

Chinese probably exported 200,000 C96s. Majority went to the U.S. Minority went to the Europe. Without systemically studying this gun as a collectible in the past, as a historical big user of this gun, Chinese also knows 6-shot being rare, Conehammer being scarce, etc, looks like most of those were preserved.