Third Party Press

K43 AC44 VOPO 'q' block

agentcq

Senior Member
K43 ac over 44 #514q
Barrel stepped and marked dtk 68 45 'waa 359'.

Interesting as the left receiver has 2x VOPO sunbursts. 1x to the front of the receiver and 1x rearward.
The receiver also has 2x Captured 'X's, both are two different sizes of font and are a Roman Numeral type 'X' versus a standard 'X'. The bolt carrier appears VOPO forced match, the bolt/bolt locking lugs are also. Lots of the non-typical WWII serial numbered parts are electro penciled and the butt plate is blued and stamped to match. The action is very slick and like most VOPO's the overall condition of the rifle is very good to excellent (cherry picked and only re-finished the best of what they had).

Just a flipper for me, but I find the X's interesting (I believe another thread talked about this different style of X, but I can't find the thread).
With a '45' barrel, I assume the rifle was assembled in 1945. Also interesting as most rifles in the 'q' block on Claus's serial number study are panel cut rifles.
 

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Another interesting point, is I recently was shown a receipt for one of these VOPO G43's recently. Purchased in 1989 for $369.00 CDN
What I found almost more interesting was the rifle was purchased in 1989, they sure didn't waste time exporting these rifles for sale, especially as East Germany only fell apart that year.
 
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Another interesting point, is I recently was show a receipt for one of these VOPO G43's recently. Purchased in 1989 for $369.00 CDN
What I found almost more interesting was the rifle was purchased in 1989, they sure didn't waste time exporting these rifles for sale, especially as East Germany only fell apart that year.


jealous man always wanted one of the Vopo G-43's for my collection, SARCO had a few in the shop in the early 90's
 
Another interesting point, is I recently was shown a receipt for one of these VOPO G43's recently. Purchased in 1989 for $369.00 CDN
What I found almost more interesting was the rifle was purchased in 1989, they sure didn't waste time exporting these rifles for sale, especially as East Germany only fell apart that year.

The GDR was in serious financial straits by 1989, Honecker was basically kicked out when the EG Politburo realized he and the really old guard were not going to go along with Gorbachev, I remember EG citizens calling 'Gorby save us'. But before that time, there was a financial procurer working for them, he eventually was convicted of massive illegal shenanigans on behalf of the GDR govt, among them was selling of weapons, including those and even line-produced MPiKM-74s even back into the earlier 1980s. He was a 'fixer', and I think his name was Schalck-Golodkowsky.
 
Schalck-Golodkowsky was his name and ran a organization call CoCo this firm dealt with hard currency through West Germany and other countries in Africa and middle east, ( the STG -44 in syria) K-98 rifles in Iraq

lots of old P-38's Luger;s K-98 etc were released through distributors in West Germany and Switzerland trough various firms, these showed in the US from the late 70's till the mid 90's ( by then the West German corp) those Lugers and P-38's had there sunbursts punched out So when you find the Vopo sunburst punched out it came from that time period. this was done to hide the true location for the weapons, fortunately some escaped, the sunburst from being punched out these are the weapons East German collectors want, I pass up lot of the punched out sunburst all the time.


so hard up for hard currency, they sold off human beings ( political dissents) to West Germany. Several good books, now out of print that discussed this subject, also there are a few books in German only that discuss the functions of CoCo

again nice example of a East German rework K/G 43

jealous
 
The GDR (formerly Russian occupied East Germany) was notoriously short of cash and more than once on the verge of financial collapse. In the West, their East German currency had the market value of expired Disney dollars and it was only good for buying socialist-made garbage from the Eastern bloc. A solution needed to be found to bring in much needed hard currency. From 1966 on until the collapse of the GDR in 1989, Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski headed the organization "Kommerzielle Koordinierung (KoKo)" which maintained covert business relationships with the West. In period newspapers, you'll often see Schalck-Golodkowski with a big slimy grin on his face. That's because he was mostly involved in shady business. KoKo's business included acquisition of international currency as well as sanctioned goods and sanctioned technology, operation of shops at train stations, airports and customs check points catering to Western travelers, acting as middleman for West German individuals buying scarce goods for relatives in the East and ransacking East Germany for salable arts and antiques. KoKo also participated in drug trade and offered middleman services for accelerated release of political prisoners in the GDR to West Germany in return for cash payments from the West German government. In the global political arena, KoKo financially supported the West German Communist Party and the Socialist Party of West Berlin.

One of the clandestine companies operating under the KoKo umbrella was IMES, founded in 1981 to sell arms in order to generate enough cash flow to avert East Germany's looming financial collapse. IMES closely cooperated with Stasi, a Gestapo-type secret service operation. IMES sold small arms as well as heavy military equipment to "friendly" countries such as Uganda, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Ethiopia, Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Palestine and more. This all happened right under the nose of "Big Brother" Soviet Union without the Russians ever fully knowing about it. When East Germany fell in 1989, the full extend of KoKo's and IMES' operations became apparent when huge ware houses full of military equipment and firearms were discovered. As it now was clear that IMES had been the pivot point for large scale international weapons exports in return for hard cash, slimy grinning Schalck-Golodkowski went into hiding the following day before surrendering to West German officials.

As the East German border guards and police had already been traded in their G/K43 for modern Russian firearms long before the GDR collapsed, it is very well possible that the 1989 cache of G/K43 out of East Germany was once part of the inventory stashed away in IMES' ware houses. It is less likely that anything sold in 1989 was from inventory sellout of the past-Golodkowski era as IMES folded in December 1989 and shipments would not have made it to the U.S. before spring 1990.
 
I am new to this and learning about K43s. Where do Vopos fall in value compared to standard K43s. is there a difference? I know a Russian Capture P38 or K98 is always worth less than an original. I assume this is the case here?

or due to the scarcity of K43s (compared to K98s for example) does this have less impact overall?
 
East German collectors would disagree. A nice condition unmessed with VOPO was around 2K the last I knew. I've been out of the game for a while though so that estimate may no longer be accurate. Regardless, I think most would place them above simply "shooter".
 
East German collectors would disagree. A nice condition unmessed with VOPO was around 2K the last I knew. I've been out of the game for a while though so that estimate may no longer be accurate. Regardless, I think most would place them above simply "shooter".
I would agree. A nice matching VoPo rework isn't a shooter IMO. There are a lot of K43s that are mess (in one way or another) to use for that purpose.
 
The VoPo I bought in 1986 from the back of Shotgun News thru a dealer who added his 10% charge with sales tax/dros was a little under $470.

So the East Germans were selling them before they fell.
 

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