Boomhandle Mauser, should I?

Saw a very nice Boomhandle today. It's in .30, all matching, immaculate condition. It also comes with a matching stock.
The stock has two minor cracks in it.
I believe it's a commercial model, not military. The shop said it was made in the '30's.

The price is $1800.

I think that's a decent deal, especially with a matching stock. The biggest problem is that I don't know that much about these guns. What do you think? That's a lot of money for me right now, but I could do layaway.

Thanks

Thanks for the replies!
I called the shop and put a deposit on it.

If it has crystalized, you're going to get an eyeful of bolt in your face.

Click to expand...

That does not sound very appealing. I'm not sure I'll fire it because it's in such pristine condition. The shop owner said when he had it apart it appeared unfired. Don't know how much I buy that, but it certainly has not been fired a lot.

Well, I picked it up. The shop owner was on crack. After doing research on
http://www.1896mauser.com and a few other places, I have come to some comclusions. This gun was NOT made in the 1930's. It is a Prewar Commercial produced in 1910.
I don't know how much that affects the value, but I think it's much cooler that it was made before WWI. That makes the gun 96 years old.

Looking at the bolt face, I can see that the gun has definitely been fired before, but not very much. I'll try to post pics in the next couple of days.

So where do I find ammo for this thing? I may never fire it, but I cannot stand to have a gun without any proper ammo.

OK here are a couple of pics. The lighting does not do the finish justice, unfortunately.



I found the ammo on a couple of sites. A lot of places are not willing to ship to MA, however. The best price seems to be from Cole Distributing. The factory ammo I found is made by Fiocchi, FNM and PRVI PARTIZAN. I don't know if there are other current producers.

Here's a follow-up question about ammo:
Can 7.62x25 Tok brass be safely reloaded to 7.63x25 Mauser specs?