Questions about my Mauser Kar98AZ, Erfurt, 1916

G

gunguyphil

Member
Hello I am new to the forum. I finally was given my dad's old Mauser..... He is the history I know of it. When my dad was discharged from the U.S. Army in the mid 1950's, his neighbor (a WW2 vet) give him this rifle to fix. He then died of a heart attack and his wife told my dad to keep it. It came with a bayonet and both were manufactured in Erfurt in the rifle is stamped 1916 and the serial number is below 2000. Near as I can tell all the parts are stamped with matching serial numbers. The only unit maring I can find is on the bayonet guard. Nothing on the rifle.
So this rifle sat in our attic while I was growing (I am now 57) up.....when I got older and into firearms and history, I oiled it periodically. I went in the navy in 1988 and retired in 2008.My dad, now 90, gave it to me finally.
So my questions are:
is there an online resource to look up the serial number and it's history of use?
 
Here are some pics of them.
 

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Welcome to the forum! This forum is probably one of the best places to learn about Imperial German weaponry as there is much still being discovered and researched on it. Your bayonet is a m1898 with a unit marking on the crossguard though it's missing the bayonet catch. The Kar98AZ was made by the royal Erfurt plant throughout the duration of WWI with your rifle predating the 2 big updates to the stock (addition of grasping grooves and a bolt takedown disc). Kar98AZs were supplied to more specialty troops like cavalry at the outbreak of war with infantry being armed with Gewehr 98s. As far as to the specific history of this particular rifle, that might be lost to time considering that many German records didn't survive WWII. The experts here might be able to weigh in more on your bayonet's unit marking and general history.
 
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RyanE said:
I would assume its 1. Garde-Grenadier-Regiment "Kaiser Alexander". I'm not sure why the 'R' is italicized like a reserve regiment though.
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That's correct-- some of the earlier unit markings have the cursive/italic R for regular infantry.
 
There exist a 1.Garde Grenadier Reserve Regiment. Hard to believe this cursive R would be used as normal Infantry. KAR would be the designation for 1.GGR. Similar was examined on rifles.
 
AndyB said:
Hard to believe this cursive R would be used as normal Infantry. KAR would be the designation for 1.GGR. Similar was examined on rifles.
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I went back and looked Andy-- you are right. My tired-after-work brain was mixing up some of the older rifles that used a regular R for regular infantry and RR for reserve regiment rather than the single cursive R.

Thanks for helping us keep each other on point.
 
The designation of Garde Reserve IR nr.1 is missing the second G for Grenadier designation, in that case i should be wrong on this, anyway on rifles was used the KAR designation. Should be compared that the script R was normal by similar pieces. There exist S1871 with KAR stamps,same as Gew98 and Gew88.
 
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