71/84 Import history?

RoscoeTurner

Well-known member
Anyone have background information on when and where from the majority of 71/84 Mausers in the US were imported? Tried the search feature but did not turn up anything.
 
Anyone have background information on when and where from the majority of 71/84 Mausers in the US were imported? Tried the search feature but did not turn up anything.
My understanding is that a lot of the really nice minty ones were sold to South American countries and remained in storage for a long period of time before being sold to dealers in the US in the 80s.

There are also a much smaller number that came back as bring backs-- usually these are a bit rougher and often show depot work from early war service.

I'm sure others were sold on the surplus market too, but I'm not sure of timing.
 
This topic came up on Gunboards back when I still went there occasionally. Aside from the bring backs, as Chris mentioned, a lot came from South America. Apparently many were sold by Germany to Ecuador, but were soon outdated and were never used. They were put in proper storage and remained in excellent condition. These were purchased by an importer, Interarms I believe, which explains why nice ones are so common on the market.
More recently, many were purchased and used for the film The Last Samurai. These were sold by the Old Western Scrounger and can be spotted by their repro stocks, which gave a large W instead of FW for a cypher.
 
My understanding is that a lot of the really nice minty ones were sold to South American countries and remained in storage for a long period of time before being sold to dealers in the US in the 80s.

There are also a much smaller number that came back as bring backs-- usually these are a bit rougher and often show depot work from early war service.

I'm sure others were sold on the surplus market too, but I'm not sure of timing.

They were brought in for a long time. God only knows on the countries of origin, as the Germans sent off a fair few in sales, military aid, etc. Here's a page out of the 1927 Bannerman Catalog listing what looks to be a m71 (based on the cleaning rod) about 3/4 the way down. Note that it's advertising them as not being in the US, but available to import "from a European port."

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