Midway Surplus M1 Carbine

There is a thread going on this as to possible scenarios of how the importer ended up with these. It will depend on price as to how well or fast these these go.

Links

My mistake I was thinking of another froum, it's early. These carbines were most likely owned or claimed to be owned by the Italians and not MAP related so they were sold to the high bidder and imported. CMP usually handles rifles that were returned from the country they were loaned to and does not get into importing. That's the short story most likely.

Their research shows they have 100 variants?

Sounds like they're very proud of them, and will price them accordingly.

After WWII, virtually all US M1 carbines went through arsenal repair where they received the latest upgrades. You won’t even see a period correct M1 in the movies. If these carbines avoided that, the prices will be justifiably high.

Kudos to Midway and the importer for setting up a reliable marketplace for those rifles. I signed up to be notified but doubt if I'll be buying one. Three nice CMP Inlands are in my safe, one for each of my sons. The pricing should be interesting!

If you want an easy explanation of the MAP/CMP link, check out this video from the Garand Collectors Association:

https://thegca.org/the-cmp-and-the-philippine-garands/

My understanding is that in recent times the CMP's primary source for '03's, Garands and Carbines are arms that were provided to friendly countries during the Cold War through the Military Assistance Program. One condition of the deal was that when no longer wanted by the recipient, the arms were to be offered back to the US DOD before being otherwise disposed of.

That doesn't always happen -- some once-friendly regimes later turned hostile to US interests, such as Iran.

twarr1 said:

I wonder how the CMP didn't end up with them.

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As a guess, these were probably purchased in bulk by the Italian Caribinari, which is a police organization (if paramilitary). So, they would not be "on loan" a Defense Aid.

Defense Aid belongs to the Army (DoD), and on return, goes back to them. Those items then go to CMP (mostly). They are not "imported" per se.

Purchased firearms transfer to the new owners. So, on returning to the US, they have to go through all the steps needed for Importation.

I believe, reading between the lines of Midway's announcement, the "100 variants" is from the matrix of Receiver Manufacturer, and also which barrel band (Type I, II, III); stock type (low/high wood); handguard rivet count (1 or 2); bolt type (M1/M2); possibly rear sight type.

Will bet these will be priced accordingly. Probably $1400-1500 for the base models; and more for rarer copies like a NPM or the like.

Have any of those extremely used looking cord wood stacked ones from Ethiopia hit the market yet?

Edit: Just checked Royal Tiger's site, they're looking for $1300+ for those, and they looked pretty beat.

Hand select were $2000.

twarr1 said:

I also wonder how much the market will discount them after they are import marked.

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These are supposed to be engraved and not roll stamped as in the past when you could get smashed barrels and so on. You have folks now days who don't care if it is an import and will snatch them up regardless. Many years ago you had a lot more folks who would have nothing to do with them. Personally I will pass because they wont be cheap and are import marked...

twarr1 said:

how much the market will discount them after they are import marked.

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Well, given that even Blue Sky junkers are still carrying $1200 & $1300 gun show price tags . . .
Which has been vexing of late.

Speedo66 said:

Have any of those extremely used looking cord wood stacked ones from Ethiopia hit the market yet?

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Hit or miss.
Some of the "hand selected" ones have been gorgeous. Most of the "base price" ones were rather sketchy looking. Not to Blue Sky or FedOrd sketchy. but close enough.

Speedo66 said:

Have any of those extremely used looking cord wood stacked ones from Ethiopia hit the market yet?

Edit: Just checked Royal Tiger's site, they're looking for $1300+ for those, and they looked pretty beat.

Hand select were $2000.

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CapnMac said:

Some of the "hand selected" ones have been gorgeous. Most of the "base price" ones were rather sketchy looking. Not to Blue Sky or FedOrd sketchy. but close enough.

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I bought a "hand select" Enfield No. 4 Mk. 1 from Royal Tiger last year -- one of the "Ethiopian cordwood" stash. I wouldn't say it was gorgeous, but it was clean and intact: no major scratches, dings, etc. I think it depends on how early you get in the game. I'd bet that as the stacks diminish, so will the quality of the "hand select."

toivo said:

I'd bet that as the stacks diminish, so will the quality of the "hand select."

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Entirely true. And, I was only referring to the M-1 Carbines out of that batch.

CapnMac said:

Entirely true. And, I was only referring to the M-1 Carbines out of that batch.

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Right -- sorry, I was just speaking in general.

I was almost too late in my Enfield purchase because I was waiting for my C&R FFL to come through, but there were still some decent ones left. M1 Carbines go really fast, so I would expect the decline in quality to also be pretty rapid.

Hmmmmm......did not Italy and Denmark both refurrb M1Garands and M1Carbines, in theater, after the war for the redistribution to new allies,?

South Korea, a few years later, redid our Pacific theater weapons, also redistributed by the US as aid

My wife has a nice Rockola with an IBM barrel, one of the Royal Tiger Imports. Besides being cleaned up by the FFL just to read the serials, we had a hella job scrubbing that one dust and grit free, but it was basicly new under the wood and in the bore, and the dry stock took gun oil a couple times and is quite fine. Shoots like a charm above freezing, as its proven to be no cold weather gun, like every other Carbine Ive seen here.

caribou said:

Hmmmmm......did not Italy and Denmark both refurrb M1Garands and M1Carbines, in theater, after the war for the redistribution to new allies,?

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My understanding (and that is admittedly incomplete) is that Denmark did their usual depot maintenance and rebarreling domestically -- VAR marked barrels in particular. They may have also had the Italians to do some of this type of work for them under contract; certainly many brand new Italian-made Garands were purchased by Denmark from Beretta (with some parts from Breda).

Eventually they also had a quantity of 7.62 NATO Garands in inventory along with their '06s. Bloke on the Range made a few videos with his ex-Danish Garand in 7.62 NATO:



I've heard/read that Denmark considered having Beretta do a large-scale BM-59 type conversion of existing rifles to 7.62 NATO box magazine conversions, but ultimately adopted the G3 instead.

BTW, Argentina did opt for one of the BM conversion packages to update several thousand Garands they acquired along with the purchase of surplus US Navy cruisers -- these appear in a number of photos taken during the Falklands conflict.



I don't know a thing about M1 Carbines in Danish service and would love to learn more.

My grandparents all emigrated to the USA from Denmark, and someday I'd also love to own one or more of their infantry arms. A Danish SIG P210 will probably remain beyond my means, but a Danish RB, Krag or Garand might be doable.

caribou said:

Hmmmmm......did not Italy and Denmark both refurrb M1Garands and M1Carbines, in theater, after the war for the redistribution to new allies,?

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There were two ways arms were distributed. One was Direct Military Aid--those were War Department property on loan to foreign militaries. Which included loans to Denmark, France, Italy, and the like (and Korea).

As the War Department drew down from around 8 million troops to 3 million, vast quantities of arms were surplus to need. That surplus was often sold to various nations directly, through the State Department. Those arms became the property of those nations by way of export.

Now, the receiving Nations often treated the arms the same. The Danes & Greeks are famous for the care they gave to their US arms; most received at least as good of care as they had with GIs.

When those arms were eclipsed by the march of time and technology, they were released from foreign service in their various ways. Foriegn Military Aid returned to its "owner"--the US Army. Who warehoused all that inventory, releasing it, eventually to DCM, and later, CMP.

The exported arms were imported, like any other foreign import, and subject to the same rules as all imports. It's easy to blur all these distinctions, especially over the 70-something year span of it all.

Midway has shown a willingness to engage in "we are proud of our product" pricing lately. I can't imagine that these will roll out reasonably priced. The "notify me" requests are telling them interest is extremely high.

Anyone looking for a deal is fooling themselves.

M1 Carbines are in incredible demand, as are most guns in general. Pricing on them has absolutely SKYROCKETED in the past year. If these are priced under $1500 I’ll be shocked.