I assumed it was a former sniper due to drilled holes. I never considered that in West a K98 would be made in a sporting stock or mount a normal set of rails / rings for normal scopes. I always thought that this rifles, being so hard to come by now days, they would be preserved for their historic value.dromia wrote:Absolutely!GeeRam wrote:Its ok if said items are not being sold as real when they come up for sale. Many of us want scoped rifles because we are old and the old peepers are now crap!!!dromia wrote:Do we really need more photographs of yet another fake k98 sniper.
There are more k98 sniper rifles about now than were ever made during WW2.
Which no doubt shows that gun buying fools are still being born every minute.
Its when they are faked and then sold as real at inflated 'collector' prices that it becomes an issue, and so becomes 'buyer beware'.
Some are good enough fakes to fool many an 'expert' RFD as well, there's one such example currently for sale in the UK right now.
The OP was obviously duped!
Going by his thread title he obviously thought he had the real thing. Here`s hoping he didn`t pay real prices.
`Twould be interesting to know from whence it came, what `twas advertised as and for how much?
Obviously, coming from a country were selling a fake is a criminal offence with 5 to 15 years prison sentence, I never thought it will be sold as real K98 when it is not.
It wasn't advertised as K98 sniper, it was advertised simply as Mauser K98 7.92cal. Description mentioned 1940, serial number, German Eagle. But it also mentioned drilled holes with the word "unfortunately" at the end. Maybe that should have been a hint? I bought it in a Scots auction and now I'll go back to Mike to start tracing back the origins of this rifle, for my own curiosity.
I think I paid around £450 with commission and all, and, at the time, I considered to be a good price for a simple K98, considering that a Mauser FN 7.92 Carbine made in Belgium sold for £150 at Southams.
The duping probably belongs to me and my own mind after I got home and I have started looking for more info about K98. Loads of info on net, hard to decide what is true and what is not.
Clearly I have loads to learn in terms of historic rifles before I'll buy a Lee-Enfield, Springfield and Mossin Nagant.
And that is why I came to this forum.... to learn.
As Ovenpaa said, it is hard to spot a fake. Don't know if he was referring to k98 sniper or just k98 fakes. However, the problem here (i.e. UK) is that there is no Gov backed expertise to go to in cases like this. In Ro we have a National Institute of History where to go and get expert advice on historical things. They will issue a certificate that will be trusted when coming to selling something like this.
And after all, I have only 2 year experience as dealer, 5 years experience as target shooter and 20 years experience as Project Manager.
Thanks for everything.