STG 44 in Gun buy back in CT

[pitsword]

Seems a lady did not want the rifle that her dad brought home from WW 2. When the local PD (around Hartford) had a buy back program she turned in a really nice STG 44. Seems a shame that it will be sent to the smelter. Too bad Rich (postino) couldn't have swapped with her.

[alanint]

Too bad there wasn't anybody around with a little knowledge. There may have been amnesty papers!

I bought a dewatted Winchester 1918 BAR from a local Lady. The gun had the chamber welded and the barrel welded to the receiver. I payed more than the gun's worth in that condition. (old dewatts like this were grandfathered in by ATF at the time, before going to the band saw cut receiver policy). Months later the lady called me up and said she had found a document that mentioned the gun. Lo and behold, she had a Treasury Department weapon registry document dated 1961!!, (this is pre ATF). It took me over 6 months, but I was able to establish ownership from the woman's father to her mother to her, through wills and estate documents, as she was the surviving child. The gun was form 5'd to Ohio Ordnance, rewatted and made into a live, transferrable BAR worth many times the original purchase price.

[alanint]

Many years ago while attending the old Coconut Grove Gun Show, (Before liberal local politicians ran it out of town), there were two scruffy guys at one bare table with nothing but an MP44 on it. I asked to see it and asked them what they wanted for the gun. They gave a price that sounded very reasonable, which made me suspect it was a Post May Dealer's Sample.
When I asked if it was transferrable they answered that they did not know what I was talking about. They cleaned out homes for a living, found it and rented a table at the show because they had been told this was where they would get the best price for it!!
I carefully wiped the gun down, (always take a microfiber or similar cloth to gun shows) and walked away.

[Patronen]

Originally Posted by alanint

Many years ago while attending the old Coconut Grove Gun Show, (Before liberal local politicians ran it out of town), there were two scruffy guys at one bare table with nothing but an MP44 on it. I asked to see it and asked them what they wanted for the gun. They gave a price that sounded very reasonable, which made me suspect it was a Post May Dealer's Sample.
When I asked if it was transferrable they answered that they did not know what I was talking about. They cleaned out homes for a living, found it and rented a table at the show because they had been told this was where they would get the best price for it!!
I carefully wiped the gun down, (always take a microfiber or similar cloth to gun shows) and walked away.

Wow! I wonder how that ended.

Also It could have been a set up. Maybe a Fed or PD sting?

[alanint]

I thought of that but not very likely. These two guys really looked the part and seemed genuinely clueless as to what they were doing. I also always attended the gun shows first thing Saturday morning to get a jump on any possible bargains before other local collectors got to them. These guys had simply not been spotted yet by anybody with any knowledge.
I did tell them they were looking at a possible 10 years in jail and about $200K in fines if they had no paperwork for the gun as I walked away. I never looked back. This happens more often than you imagine.

I was in a small gunshop in Waldwick, New Jersey in the 1970s when two young guys came in with a really nice MP40 wrapped in a blanket. They had been hired to tear down a barn in Vermont somewhere and found it in one of the walls. Needless to say, the gunshop owner ordered them out inmediately. The kids were lucky, as that shop was a frequent Law Enforcement hangout.

I've lost count of the times I've seen people come into shops here in Miami wishing to sell a gun on consignment and have them pull out an AR15 with a less than 16" upper on it or a sawed off shotgun which had belonged to a parent or grandparent. Most people have no idea of the legalities involved.

[Patronen]

Sometimes the ones that have a little bit of a clue are the most entertaining.
When your at a gunshop or show and you over hear this famous line. "I have this friend that has .................. and was wondering this...?"

[John Sabato]

I once (1967) had an acquaintence who brandished a very nice MP-38 when I and a few fellow gun enthusiasts visited him at quitting time at his business to pick up a key to our club range... He was a welder by trade, and evidently kept the gun locked up at his business.

He claimed he had smuggled the gun back in his duffel bag after WW2, and that he "couldn't wait" for their to be another riot in Philadelphia (where I was raised) so he could mow down anyone who came near his house...

To say that the rest of us were shocked by his words would be an understatement... The guy drank a lot and wasn't the type I would pick to hang around with, but he was a club member before I joined and he was the key custodian...

Very mysteriously , he was visited at his business in a couple of weeks by local ATF agents who told him they had received an anonymous tip that he possessed it, and to produce the weapon, or they would search for it, and if they found it he would be under arrest.

When he brought it out, they gave him a choice...( because he was a WW2 vet), ...he could surrender the gun, or he could cut it himself multiple times with an acetylene welding torch until they deemed it demilitarized to the point that it could not be reactivated... I can imagine the tears that ran down his face as he welded it up...

Ironically, if he had just kept it hidden and never mentioned it to anyone... he could have registered it less than a year later when the ATF declared the last unregistered machinegun amnesty... in 1968.

I was only sorry for the loss of the historical firearm in excellent condition... not for the owner... Some people shouldn't own firearms... (sigh!)

[MikeP]

My old buddy from childhood got mixed up in some shennanigans while I was in the army and got caught.

While in college he became a kind of Juas goat for the ATF, He would attend shows or buddy up to folks suspected of illicit trafficking. I guess that kept him from being prosecuting, but it was pretty rotten overall. I think he made trouble for reasonably innocent people,

I do think multiple buys were required. .He later became a ATF agent.

When I got home he approached me about his old job as they needed somebody.
I saw the evidence room they had in Sprinfield, Ill.

It was like Alladin's cave-everything you could imagine, including a MG 08 we once owned together. All on the way to the smelter once the case was closed.

That was the farthest they got with me.
I wanted no part of their dirty business.

[Steve Lempitski]

This does bring up an interesting point - the "stuff" that is out there. A friend of mines father worked for a mail order gun company in the late 50s. One day a load of Korean war M1 carbines came in, and my friends father was given the task of taking them to the local sandpit to make sure they worked...loading 3 rounds in each gun, all went bang, bang, bang, except one went BRUUP... looking close he noticed the selector switch. He checked all the other guns and no others had the selector. returning to work, he asked the owner if instead of a paycheck, could he take one home. Told yes, its not hard to figure which one went home with him. As far as I know, his father still has it. I imagine to inherit this gun, my friend would first want to contact the ATF?

[Steve Lempitski]

SAVED - a gun collecting Cop noticed the gun, the owner is allowed to keep it to sell to a museum. According to article in paper, they are talking 30 - 40,000 for it....

[alanint]

That's a ridiculous price and again reflects the lack of knowledge about these guns.

A fully transferrable, legal, live gun is worth in the neighborhood of $15,000 right now.

Unless it is a rare MKb42(H) or (W), an MP42 or MP43, which externally look similar to the later guns, (and the photo indicates a garden variety, mid production MP44, Stg 44) there is no way it is worth this much.

[alanint]

Steve,

Unless your friend has incontrovertible proof the gun is amnestied and registered, the only reason he would contact the ATF would be to surrender the gun.

[Steve Lempitski]

Thanks - so there is no way he could register the gun?

[Steve Lempitski]

http://www.guns.com/2012/12/08/hardf...m-gun-buyback/

[Steve Lempitski]

I remember a similar story where a woman showed up in St Louis at a gun buyback program with her grandfathers 1928 Thompson he had bought mail order back in the day. A collector noticed the gun and tried to contact the owner, the cops told the collector to leave - so he did and went straight to the local news station. The reporters got involved and the chief of police had to come clean. The woman didnt want the gun back, so arrangements were made where the gun was sold to a collector for a fair price...

[Hugh]

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:

Woman turns in historic Nazi assault rifle at Conn. gun buy-back

Posted By Jessica Stanton On 2:31 PM 12/11/2012
When police officers announced this year’s gun buy-back program would allow residents to exchange their guns for Wal-Mart gift certificates, they never expected a woman possessing a World War II-era Nazi Assault Rifle to take the bait.

But that’s exactly what happened in Hartford, Conn. over the weekend.

“It’s like finding the Babe Ruth of baseball cards. The rarity, it was made for such a very short period,” Officer John Cavanna, one of the two officers who discovered the gun, told ABC News.

Officer Lewis Crabtree added, “The chance to see a piece of history — this … is absolutely unbelievable.”

Cavanna and Crabtree are resident gun experts for the Hartford Police Department.

The woman found the weapon in a closet after her father, a World War II veteran, passed away. Her father had brought home the historic weapon, usually issued to SS troops, from Europe as a keepsake from the war.

She was unaware it is now valued between $20,000 to $25,000.

The Sturmgewehr 44, meaning “storm rifle,” dates back to 1944. Crabtree revealed it was the first “modern assault rifle ever made, eventually replaced by the AK 47 in 1947 by Russia, who copied the German design of the Sturmgewehr 44.”

And although every modern assault rifle is modeled after the Sturmgewehr 44, Crabtree understood how its significance could be overlooked.

“If you were to look at the gun and didn’t know anything about guns, you would think it was garbage,” Crabtree said.

In its current state, this Sturmgewehr 44 is inoperable. But in its prime, it would have held a 30-round magazine and shot 500 rounds per minute.

The gun buy-back program allows residents to anonymously turn in firearms to be destroyed. In exchange, the Hartford Police Department gives them a $50 or $100 gift card to Wal-Mart, depending on the type of weapon.

The Sturmgewehr 44 will have a different fate.

“We did not take the gun in for the gun buy-back program,” Crabtree said. “If we took it as part of the buy-back, we would have no choice but to destroy the gun. We don’t want to destroy that gun.”

The anonymous owner opted to keep the historic weapon at the police station until she is prepared to sell.

“It sounds like her family could use the money,” Cavanna said.

[LWaali]

Kudos for the officers who stopped this from being destroyed.

[suum cuique]

Originally Posted by Hugh

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE:

Woman turns in historic Nazi assault rifle at Conn. gun buy-back

.

Misleading newspaper article.
How can be a StG 44 a NAZI assault rifle? (Maybe a nazi era rifle). I was always thinking it was a German weapon. Is a 2002 build M4 a republican rifle, a 2012 M4 a democratic rifle?
Just my 2 cents.