8x VZ-24 Snipers w/ IOR Scopes Just Sold

T

thrawnformbi

Junior Member
Astounded these went for so little considering their rarity in the states. I feel like plenty of folks would pay that for an IOR scope on its own let alone matching kits with leather scope cases. Did anyone grab one?

2153d37e-0d40-4636-b7b7-82ff8a066208-jpeg.3885635
 
one person got most of them... clearly trying to corner the market... I am sure we will see these again for sale at an inflated price, keep a tab on them except for 70 and 75. you won't see those for sale. That is the most number of IOR scopes that I have seen ever in one place, almost as if the planets aligned.. BTW, who puts an auction on for tuesday morning. I would suspect Rock Island would have doubled all these prices on a saturday or sunday.
 
alund said:
one person got most of them... clearly trying to corner the market... I am sure we will see these again for sale at an inflated price, keep a tab on them except for 70 and 75. you won't see those for sale. That is the most number of IOR scopes that I have seen ever in one place, almost as if the planets aligned.. BTW, who puts an auction on for tuesday morning. I would suspect Rock Island would have doubled all these prices on a saturday or sunday.
Click to expand...
I spoke with the guys at GSI Inc (Guns South Inc.) as their import marks were on the barrels. Nobody there had any idea when these were brought in - even the old timers with 20-30 years at the import desk. Apparently they share a building with Anschutz North America doing all of their importation so maybe there's some connection there. But yea, who knows where Centurion found all of these. I'm thinking one guy had them tucked away in the closet for decades.
 
I wonder if there are any loose scopes to be had? I could use an IOR scope but they've always be unobtainium as far as I'm concerned...
 
I’ve said this over the past 10 years…. Finding these scopes are absolutely impossible.
 
To me it appeared as if the importer of the Vz.24 sniper rifles put the few he had in complete with scopes aside/sold them in a bulk to whoever bought them and put them aside. They were poorly described and the above listed prices are way to cheap for what they are, even for Europe where they are far much more common than in the US. I'm sure we'll see them reappear on the market.
 
I just came across these documents on a Romanian militaria site and thought they might be of interest. I'm having them translated now (only $20!) so they will hopefully be even more enlightening. Have you all seen these? Reference to the dispensing of "ZB sniper rifles" including one document that is clearly marked May of 1944. Might shed some light on the "post-war" only debate.
 

Attachments

  • 20-Romanian-Army-Sniper-scopes-made-for-the-vz-24-rifles-in-ww2.jpg
    20-Romanian-Army-Sniper-scopes-made-for-the-vz-24-rifles-in-ww2.jpg
    332.2 KB · Views: 18
  • 19-Romanian-Army-Sniper-scopes-made-for-the-zb-24-rifles-in-ww2-archive.jpg
    19-Romanian-Army-Sniper-scopes-made-for-the-zb-24-rifles-in-ww2-archive.jpg
    308.2 KB · Views: 17
  • 18-Romanian-Army-Sniper-scopes-made-for-the-zb-24-rifles-in-ww2.jpg
    18-Romanian-Army-Sniper-scopes-made-for-the-zb-24-rifles-in-ww2.jpg
    283.6 KB · Views: 16
  • 17-Romanian-Army-Snipers-in-ww2.jpg
    17-Romanian-Army-Snipers-in-ww2.jpg
    381.5 KB · Views: 19
Yes, they were posted some time ago. I think even on this forum here. Google translator gives you a rough idea on the content as well.
 
This was an absolute steal. Even the most "expensive" one. Congratulations to the lucky ones who managed to snatch those rifles. I guess miracles do happen from time to time...ha!
 
In case anyone is interested here are the translated documents from above. Unsure of the reference to "Great Unity" but the Romanian woman who did the translation for me said this in response:

"Great Unity is the category formed of military bases. High unit is not the proper translation here. We must take into account the context as well. Here since it is about military stuff, "high unit" is not okay. And not the Unity is high, but the percentage of it. The Great Unity is a category of military units that support different operations. So, the percentage of it is high since there are a lot of tactical units (Divisions, Brigades and so on). That sentence is a concern from the person who wrote that brief. If you know more about it, you could come with an explanation as well."

If anyone can decipher that mumbo jumbo I'm all ears. Anyway, here you have em.
 

Attachments

  • 20-Translation.jpg
    20-Translation.jpg
    451.6 KB · Views: 9
  • 18-Translation.jpg
    18-Translation.jpg
    413.3 KB · Views: 8
  • 17-Translation.jpg
    17-Translation.jpg
    472.7 KB · Views: 6
  • 19-Translation.jpg
    19-Translation.jpg
    458.5 KB · Views: 9
thrawnformbi said:
In case anyone is interested here are the translated documents from above. Unsure of the reference to "Great Unity" but the Romanian woman who did the translation for me said this in response:

"Great Unity is the category formed of military bases. High unit is not the proper translation here. We must take into account the context as well. Here since it is about military stuff, "high unit" is not okay. And not the Unity is high, but the percentage of it. The Great Unity is a category of military units that support different operations. So, the percentage of it is high since there are a lot of tactical units (Divisions, Brigades and so on). That sentence is a concern from the person who wrote that brief. If you know more about it, you could come with an explanation as well."

If anyone can decipher that mumbo jumbo I'm all ears. Anyway, here you have em.
Click to expand...

Maybe report finds that percentage of undistributed sniper rifles is too high, meaning they were expecting larger than (only) 1810 rifles to be manufactured and distributed between the units at this point? Report is from May 1944, time was running out for pro German Romanian forces, since they "flipped" in August 1944...So they probably desperately needed more of those rifles at the time report was generated, especially because of the Soviets offensive directly impacting situation of the Romania ...just trying to make a sense of it all, by looking at the "larger" picture here.
 
alund said:
I’ve said this over the past 10 years…. Finding these scopes are absolutely impossible.
Click to expand...

I realize that though I wondered if any loose ones came in whenever these scoped rifles did. If these were old imports that someone has sat on for 20+ years, I imagine we would've seen some by now.
 
Wolfsburg said:
I realize that though I wondered if any loose ones came in whenever these scoped rifles did. If these were old imports that someone has sat on for 20+ years, I imagine we would've seen some by now.
Click to expand...
Yeah, a seller would have slowly slipped them in over time... a collector would have shared info to a friend or two... a hoarder would never let them go. ie we would have heard about the scopes by now if they were 20 years stateside. Maybe someone took a trip to europe and had a buddy who was holding onto something in the back of his store that was forgotten about.. who knows.
 
I was going to bid on these but it didn’t look like any of the bases were marked/numbered which made me a bit hesitant. The highly polished bolts and parts were also a bit odd. Definitely cool seeing all the IOR scopes but I wasn’t sure about the rifles and some of the numbering.
 
All of these rifles were reworked so I would doubt if any of the bolts were original to the rig.
 
All of them were reworked. Mine feature polished bolts as well. Some even K98k bolts. I think this was part of the Romanian restoration.
 
That would explain the condition of some of my (scopeless) examples. A few of them have an almost poly finish on their stocks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top