My First Luger

[Heydrich]

[Be really careful when you say you don't buy anything with an import stamp. That's a pretty generic statement.]

[Frank although not PC (heh, heh), I don't think that an import stamp makes any difference to me!]

Frank, Ed:

You are both absolutely right of course. This attitude (and thus resultant behavior) about import stamps on collector firearms is strictly one of my own making. It comes from a real negative incident that I had back in the 90s when I first started collecting K98 rifles. You see, the presence of an import stamp on a Mauser 98 rifle can be damning for its value. And worse, show very poorly on the knowledge of the buyer.

When I was younger, I read a very good book on German rifles (Robert Ball’s book Mauser Military Rifles of the World). So, feeling cocksure about my information, I went to the next gun show that came by my hometown (Portland, OR). I found what I thought at the time was a nice 98k rifle, and acted like a smart-ass expressing my knowledge about it. It was import marked. I missed it. I later showed that rifle to someone I really respected concerning German rifles, and he caught it immediately. He told me this type of 98k was worthless and not a collector’s rifle with an import stamp on the barrel! He was right. I’ll never forget my utter embarrassment.

So, just for me, I will never buy a firearm with an import stamp on it. This is just my thinking, and I admit it is completely irrational, but that is the way I look at it. [img]frown.gif[/img]

-Curt