A few years ago I picked up a Haenel manufactured MP41 Machine Pistol. These are pretty rare because they only made about 20,000 of them before Erma forced them to stop due to a copyright issue on the MP40 design. This is the magazine loader, also made by Haenel, for the MP41. Even more rare that the gun I would expect.
This rifle, a VZ24 manufactured by Brno in 1940, is a great example of a German issue G24(t). It’s fully matching down to the stock. Still has all of its dirty birds intact. The only downer is that fact that Bubba has sanded the stock lightly at some point. Shame, but since these are terrifically hard to get in Canada in any state, I am prepared to ignore this. This brings me one step closer to having a full collection of German long guns. The ones I have missing at a G29/40 Radom and a G41(m).
Here’s an uncommon rifle I just picked up. These German contract guns were made by Fémáru Fegyver és Gépgyár, Budapest, which company possibly subcontracted some or all of the work to Danuvia Gépgyár, Budapest 1941-44. In 1940 the Mannlicher Model 35 was redesigned for the German contract. Based on German request the caliber was changed to 7.92x57mm Mauser, the bolt handle was turned down, a staggered row Mauser-type box magazine flush with the bottom of the stock was fitted and German M98-type bands and bayonet lug were used on this rifle. All steel parts, including the bolt were blued.
I haven’t been able to work out why the reference to Gewehr 98 in it’s name as it shares no dna with that rifle. Note the 2 part lower stock in the same style as the Enfield SMLE rifles.
This is the 10 round magazine for the 20mm Flak 30/38 anti-aircraft gun. These were blued steel and supplied in cases of two. This example is stamped cjs for the manufacturer Kallenbach, Meyer & Franke Metallwarenfabrik in Luckenwalde. It is dated 1943. Amusingly Canadian regulations require all magazines for “rifles” to be pinned for 5 rounds as this helpfully has been. For scale I have put one of the mags for my K43 rifle in the photo.
A fairly straightforward item here. I got this from Andrew so that I would have one round for the magazine I bought from him. This is an HE 20mm round for the 2 cm Flak 30/38/Flakvierling. It has the asr code for “HAK” Hanseatisches Kettenwerk in Hamburg-Langenhorn as well as the WaA271 inspection stamp for that factory.
The Luger pistol is a prohibited firearm up here north of the border, due to its barrel length of 100mm. Because I came to Canada so late I was unable to be grandfathered into the pistol license required to own one. As a substitute I own a WW1 & WW2 “cock and click” dewat as well as the long barrelled LP-08 Artillery Luger. But I always wanted the real deal. So I went the long route of sourcing a 105mm barrel from the US and then locating a Luger up here to get re-barrelled and reclassified as restricted.
This is it, a 1937 Mauser made S/42 marked Luger P-08. It came with a spare magazine, a takedown tool marked WaA63 (correct for Mauser) and a period holster from 1937.
Patience is what you need in this hobby. And after ten years of looking, my patience is rewarded with an MP-38 Machinenpistole. Just about as nice as can be given that I am in Canada, this is an all matching Erfurter Maschinenfabrik B. Geipel GmbH (ERMA) made example dating from 1940. An old dewat, it is what we call “cock and click” in that the action can be cocked and released with a pull on the trigger. Very hard to find compared to the MP-40 that I have here. All I need to find for this now is a better sling and a slab sided early magazine as the one in it is the later MP38u40 type.
Recently I finally found an MP38 after a decade of searching. Only bit missing was the magazine. I will look for the early flat sided one but in the meantime I’ll stick this unmarked 38u40 in it.
Just brilliant. I recently bought another G43 from a friend and it had come to him with this scope mount and scope on it. At the time he didn’t want to part with it but in the meantime, something else has caught his eye and I get to be the new lucky owner.
The scope is marked for ddx, Voigtländer & Sohn AG, Optisches Gerät of Braunschweig. The Zielfernrohre ZF4 has the green triangle meaning it is greased for a hot climate. The mount itself was manufactured by Walther and is stamped with their WaA359 mark.
Finally, after three years of searching, I find a 20 round magazine for my MP-28/II submachine gun. These guns are incredibly rare in Canada which makes the magazines even harder to track down. I looked all over, including in the Balkans before finally finding one in a town 60km from me, go figure. The trade in a carpark felt remarkably like a drug deal, but there you go. This one is marked for the manufacturer, Haenel, no WaA’s so definitely prewar, likely pre-Nazi.
I have one other Mauser K98’s, here. That one is from a Czech factory and is all matching except for the lower stock. I wanted one of these rifles, mid-war, German factory and no need for the word “except” when describing it. Through a friend of a friend, this one appeared. A Sauer made 1943 K98, no issues, all there, lovely.
In order to fit my MG34 onto the dreibein I just obtained, I needed the adapter. These are quite expensive for what they are so in the meantime I hooked a shabby ground dug one that I could use for display while I find a not-stupidly-priced example.
Something I have been looking for for ages, this is the Anti Aircraft Tripod or Dreibein that was used to convert the MG34 for light flak use. usually the wooden reinforcements are long gone but this one still has them as well as being unit marked for the 56th Searchlight Company, 273rd Army Flak Battalion. This makes my MG34 much easier to display and complements the Lafette I found for my MG42. Although this is likely a searchlight tripod it fits the MG perfectly.
This is my second G/K43 Rifle. The other one I have, I rebuilt from a converted sporter. This one came to me, 100% correct from a fellow collector raising funds for his next absurd purchase. The receiver is stamped AC 44, for Carl Walther Waffenfabrik in Zella-Mehlis, Goethestr. 4.
Note the stamped dot in the butt plate, the staked screws on the underside of the action and the WaaB43 stamp on the magazine (indicating manufacture by Olympia Buromaschinenwerke AG).
Lately I have been finding a few artillery and mortar optics. I like them because they are precision equipment and are quite tactile. The optics viewfinder on this one is a bit different as it has a calculating mechanism for tracking a target traversing the field of view. This one was manufactured by Optische Werke G.Rodenstock in München and has their eso code. It is an Rbl.F.36, which stands for Rundblickfehrnrohr 36. It was used on the Pak-36, 38 & 40 as well as smaller artillery tubes.
Okay, so this is the most expensive thing I have in my collection now. It’s a 1941 manufactured Walther G41(W) semiautomatic rifle. Manufactured in two plants, this example bears the stamp AC indicating it was made in Walther’s factory at Zeller Mehlis. It wasn’t a success and less than 145,000 were built. It suffered from fouling issues and over pressuring, resulting in firing pin or piston failures. You can see the resemblance to the later G43, it’s successor.
Pretty standard but hard to find this size in Canada. This is the 8cm mortar projectile for the GrW34. It’s marked for blw 42, meaning it was manufactured in 1942 by Gritzner-Kayzer AG in Karlsrühe. It is obviously ground-dug but will make a great candidate for a restore.
You know if you are going to import the parts for a ballistic missile, you can’t beat Deutsche Post. This is the Oxygen Mixing Nozzle, from the burner cup of a V2 rocket. It came from a dig in Pennemunde on the Baltic coast of Germany, where these things were designed and built. Pretty much the smallest part but hey, it’s a bit of Vengeance Weapon!
Missing from my Panzerschreck rebuild was the adjustable front sight. Luckily Bergflak, a fellow on the internet here, had made some up to fit his own Panzerschreck. I got him to send me one and here we go.
I was over the other side of Ontario on the weekend picking out of a guys retirement plan when I saw this magazine. It’s unmarked but clearly WW2 vintage, it has the painted zinc button on the base. It was super cheap and since you can never have enough magazines, well here we are.
Here is a mid/late war phosphated anti-aircraft sight ring for the MG34 machinegun. The gun was placed on the drelfuss tripod mount and this sight attached. The sight is unmarked.
This box is exciting only if you have four Tellermines and need a way to store or display them. If you are this person then you need to ask yourself why you have four German anti-tank mines and do the RCMP ever slow down as they pass your house. Obviously I am such a person. Below is the case and the 4 AT mines included in the sickness that is my collection. There is a Tellermine 35, Tellermine 35(S), Tellermine 42 and Tellermine 43 sitting in this case.
Interesting item of Pioneer kit. This is a Nebelkerze 39 smoke pot used by both AFV’s and Pioneers as a means of quickly laying down a smoke screen during the attack. These were setup with the BZE39 fusing (found also on the M43 & e39 hand grenades) or with a zunder as seen in the photos below.
This one is stamped kun 1941 for the manufacturer J.F. Eisfeld GmbH, Werk Cunegonde.
This is the holster that I just sourced for my 1944 Walther P38 pictured below. By 1944 they had pretty much stopped making hard shell holsters (they do exist). Instead they supplied the pistol with a breakaway style holster as here. Folks call them a soft shell holster but that is incorrect.
This example is stamped bla 1944 and has the waffenamt WaA159. BLA is the code for the manufacturer E.G.Leuner GMBH in Bautzen. Interestingly the holster is also personalised to the U.S. Army soldier who captured it (or won it in a card game). Inside the flap is the name Henry J. Lavrich and his ASN 33688587. A quick googling reveals that Henry came from Pennsylvania, enlisted in 1943 and served in the 2nd Armoured Division in Europe. He passed away in 2011. An additional modification on this example is the cutting away of the upper, underneath the flap. This is common in these holsters and I expect it was an act by the user to make the holster easier to draw from.
The holster also contains a e/359 stamped magazine which is the correct magazine for this pistol.
This flag is a single sided National Flag, designed to be tied to the roof of German vehicles to allow for recognition from the air and hopefully avoid nazi-on-nazi sexy times. The flag has a grommet in each corner where it would be tied.
