Third Party Press

1915 Amberg Gew. 98

I found this at a gunshow a couple months ago. It came out of an old timer's collection. I think I paid too much for it, but It was an impulse buy. The bolt body matches except the rest of the parts (which match themselves), The follower has no number, and the cleaning rod has no number. I never see early Gew.'s, especially with a sling. I have not taken it out of the stock.

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To be honest finding any 1915 made Gew 98 rifle that is all matching and in great condition is tough. But I think you got a great Gewehr for you collection. Even better you got an original sling for it. And seeing a couple bolt components mismatched on a decent Gew98 rifle would not bother me. Remember these were used during wartime and parts broke. By the way what did you pay for this rifle? Being you said you paid too much for it.

Thanks for the pictures as well.
 
Nice, honest, out of the woodwork rifle. A good save especially for a small gun show, I would have bought that in a heartbeat and wish I had your luck. Given the prices these have been going for I think it's probably unlikely you overpaid. Jordan's right, originality like yours in a 1915 dated gun is damn tough, most of the time they are train wrecks. I don't think an Amberg 1915 is the most common rifle out there either, not as rare as a Suhl, WOK, or Erfurt from that year. But I seem to see a lot less Ambergs than Spandau, Danzig, DWM, and WMO from 1915.

Is your sling maker marked?
 
Nice, honest, out of the woodwork rifle. A good save especially for a small gun show, I would have bought that in a heartbeat and wish I had your luck. Given the prices these have been going for I think it's probably unlikely you overpaid. Jordan's right, originality like yours in a 1915 dated gun is damn tough, most of the time they are train wrecks. I don't think an Amberg 1915 is the most common rifle out there either, not as rare as a Suhl, WOK, or Erfurt from that year. But I seem to see a lot less Ambergs than Spandau, Danzig, DWM, and WMO from 1915.

Is your sling maker marked?

I do not see a mark on the sling.
 
I agree with the others, a nice find, - as for relative rarity, condition aside (hard to find a nice 1915 in decent shape, 1915 was the "rifle crises" of WWI, not the end of the war as in 1945, - early rifles were used up..) Amberg was the lowest maker of the big producers (Prussian arsenals & DWM/WMO), pretty much every year. This only changed in 1918 due to the fact everyone else essentially stopped making G98's (WMO & Amberg were the only real makers in 1918).

Anyway, in 1915 the only firms that made fewer rifles were all the Suhl firms (Simson and the Consortium) and WOK, though Erfurt could be included as well, they made a few 1915 G98's in 1915, pretty rare rifles, but Erfurt of course was killing it with K98a and P08's..

Couple questions, is there a suffix at the top screw of the buttplate? Lately I have been trying to determine how consistent this feature is, some makers, at least in some ranges seem to be inconsistent, but so few take pictures of the top of the BP that its hard to be sure on this. Good pictures by the way!
 
Thanks, good to be able to record this as it seems there is some inconsistency, though too few record this location to be sure how consistent/inconsistent it was applied. You would think the firms that showed more attention to detail would be more consistent, like Amberg, but hard to say until we get a better sampling.
 
Nice rifle, pretty similar in overall condition to my 1914 Spandau, yours is a little nicer though. Hows the bore? Planning on shooting it? Sling is a nice bonus
 
A nice honest gewehr, good pickup. The sling looks odd at the quick release buckle. How about better pics of that area, without that leather keeper that doesn't belong with it.
 

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