What a wonderful rifle, really as nice as they come and these early rifles are very desirable, much more so than the wartime rifles.
The unit marking is Infantry Munitions Column and the numerals represent the Armee Korps. I have never seen one before and Jeff Noll doesn't have one listed either. A really nice score here!
Doctrinal changes started in 1916, really took ahold by 1917 and this is the reason by 1918 most of the Gewehr98 manufacturers were off to something else, the only large scale makers by 1918 were Mauser Oberndorf and Amberg, the rest were small potatoes and mostly involved in other things (
DWM to MG's and P08, also because of tactical doctrine; Spandau making MG's, Erfurt the P08 & Kar98a, the Suhl makers piddling with rifles but subcontracting too, by late in the war many firms were sub-contracting for MG's, including Danzig.) There are a lot of good books on the development of German tactical doctrine, but even though it has been around a long time, Bruce Gudmundsson's Stormtroop Tactics is still a favored book imo, I have a shelf full of similar books and it is still my favorite.
Oh, inspection marks, it works the same as the nazi era (
they represent inspectors or teams working under their authority), but while the Germans never adopted fully interchangeable parts manufacture, in rifle production, the problem is more profound prior to the war (
and during it due to wartime production demands). German rifles, especially the Kar.98a are anything but fully interchangeable parts compliant, and the wide variety of inspectors is probably more due to more inspectors doing more hands on work (
or overseeing more specialized work - certain inspector marks are found on certain items-parts, not on others) at the factories. There is no book that makes note of the details of this aspect of production, comparing pre-war to the nazi era, but it is my opinion that prior to the war and in the interwar period there were more inspectors doing more of their own work, not having such large teams working under their authority as during the war. This is to keep the inspectors skilled and to serve a purpose for when war comes these men can be dispersed to other factories. You see a very wide variation of inspectors at Simson and WuK in the interwar period, far more than you would need for the piddliy production of Kar98b, P08's, and bayonets manufactured. When rearmament came I suspect these men found themselves in demand at other facilities or higher positions of authority.
This is my second Kar98a and I admit I like these almost as much as the Kar98ks. My other one is a 1917 Erfurt and common. From my brief searches on-line, this one does not seem so common. I am curious as to the buttplate markings and what unit they indicate. Also curious as to why the inspection marks are so diverse--early subcontractors? Anyway, not a perfect rifle, but in nice original shape considering the age and what it's had to survive: the stock finish is original. The sling appears to be Post World War II commercial.