M95 Steyr Help!!!

post very detailed pictures of the rifle and the marks in question.

The waffenamt on the stock looks too recent and looks like it still has smoke stains around it on the finish. The WaA623 stamp is correct for Steyr, but there are so many fake Nazi M95s floating around that it's much safer to assume it's a fake until proven otherwise. Authentic waffenamt-marked M95s are so rare that quite a few collectors don't think that there were any real ones to begin with.

The 'K' markings are a Steyr manufacturing mark, kind of like the '02' on hungarian manufactured mosins. The 'W-n-<eagle>1?' on the barrel is an acceptance mark and indicates the date of manufacture. My guess is that the ? is a 7, but I'm not positive. The 'S' means it was also reworked post-1930.

The smaller waffenamts on the receiver are probably also fakes. The hungarian eagle between the 2nd and 3rd waffenamts and also on the barrel are the actual proof marks and the germans wouldn't have re-proofed the rifles at all.

Matt

This website is always fantastic for identifying marks on an M95: http://www.hungariae.com/Mann95.htm I'd recommend looking there. You might try sending some pictures to the guy who runs the website and he can probably give you some really good information on the rifle. I'll agree with morcey2 that the discoloration around the stamp on the stock makes me suspicious.

Most collectors assume that any Nazi marked M95 is a fake. There was a large batch of them that came into the country in the 90's, in excellent condition with Waffenamt stamps. As far as I know, those are the only M95's ever found with Nazi marking. So either they are one of the greatest finds ever, they were faked before imported, or the were faked after they got here.
It does seem VERY unlikely that the Nazi's would reproof already obsolete rifles while the demand for arms had their factories running around the clock during the war. It was common for them to take over production of domestic arms in occupied countries (why you see Nazi marked FN High Powers, Padom P35's, CZ VZ-24's, etc). These were always new production arms.

These were always new production arms.

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I think that really sums up the point we're all trying to make. The Germans certainly continued to make ammo for the M95s but no one was making M95s after the early 1920s (IIRC all the receivers were built before 1918 although were still being assembled until 1920). The Germans continued to use the M95s for policemen but I don't think they would have bothered to restamp/proof them as rule303 points out.

Interesting aside, I have two boxes of 1938 dated 8x56r. The first box has the Austrian double-headed eagle and is dated from January 1938, the second box is marked with the Nazi eagle and swastika and dated August 1938. The Germans annexed Austria in March of 1938. Clearly it didn't take the Germans long to swap out the stamps for new production items, but it doesn't seem likely that they would go back and re-stamp old production especially on rifles that had been out of production for almost 20 years already.

I sold one of these Nazi marked M95 carbines that was consigned from a local collector several years ago. Seems that back then there was a lot of ballyhoo about whether it was fake or not, so its been a hot bed topic for some time.

I got so tired of people bashing that carbine, I ended up pulling from sale and left it parked on my website. It sat there for a couple weeks before I received a phone call from a private collector who asked for some very detailed and specific information and eventually made a very generous offer for the rifle.

I don't know if I still have photos of it, but it looked just about identical the one show by the OP

Don

Jnapper said:

Awesome, thanks guys! I'll definitly check that site out as well. In all of your opinions what would be a good asking price if I did end up trying to sell it, and what was "generous" if you dont mind me asking?

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I'd have to look it up as it was a few years ago, but I believe I sold it for $700

Here are the pictures of the Steyr 95/34 Carbine that I sold several years ago.








http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ddr223/library/8113 Steyr M95-34 Carbine

I'd have to look it up as it was a few years ago, but I believe I sold it for $700

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Not to be a negative-nelly, but I'd be rather surprised if you got that for it. I suspect it'll be hard to prove the markings are original and so you'll get closer to the $200 or so most M95s are selling for...that said you never know, you might get lucky like RCArms.com and find a buyer that can't live without it. I think you'd want to be careful though about selling it as a true Nazi marked rifle unless you were sure it was authentic. You wouldn't want a buyer to try to accuse of cheating them/making the changes yourself (even though the marks predate your ownership, they may not know that or assume you did yourself).

AethelstanAegen said:

Not to be a negative-nelly, but I'd be rather surprised if you got that for it. I suspect it'll be hard to prove the markings are original and so you'll get closer to the $200 or so most M95s are selling for...that said you never know, you might get lucky like RCArms.com and find a buyer that can't live without it. I think you'd want to be careful though about selling it as a true Nazi marked rifle unless you were sure it was authentic. You wouldn't want a buyer to try to accuse of cheating them/making the changes yourself (even though the marks predate your ownership, they may not know that or assume you did yourself).

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Excellent advice. In the case of the rifle I sold, it was a consignment rifle from an elderly collector that was not able to assist in any verification of the rifle.

I was contacted by the eventual buyer and he made the offer after asking a number of questions on the rifle. I never heard back from him after the sale, so it falls into the category of no news is good news. A well satisfied buyer will sometimes not follow up after the sale when it meets their expectations whereas an unsatisfied buyer will definitely follow up within the inspection period on a major purchase like this.

However where that eagle would be theres a new number and a buffed out spot...what could that mean?

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To be honest, that seems to me to be some of the better evidence that it might be legitimate. Most forgers trying to maximize their profit would want to have that eagle there. That said, I would think that having the eagle missing might also effect value a bit. I suppose it's also possible that if the rifle was a forgery and the forger didn't have the right eagle stamp, just buffing out the area would be a good way to disguise it. Sorry I can't be more helpful than that, but it's been interesting to see this unfold. I'd be curious to hear if anyone had a plausible reason why the Germans might have restamped some of the M95s.

Interesting, those are the largest Nazi stamps I've ever seen on any gun (I have no experience on their legitimacy or anything, just an observation). Every stamp I've seen is so small to be barely recognizable as an eagle. It does seem odd the Nazi's would go to the trouble of branding the old M95s so "vibrantly" all over the place*, especially considering the rifles were the POS of the day, left over obsolete arms from the last war, only fit for police duty (just like the Steyr Hahn pistols)

If it was a thoroughly re-worked 8mm Mauser conversion model, I could understand some additional proofing (since the conversion would require real quality control and keeping track parts), but a simple re-issue of an existing rifle would require nothing or the armorer/inspector. Nations typically put those stamps on for a practical process reason, not as "branding" for the benefit of their troops or us collectors

TCB

*Considering the importance the Nazis placed on branding and image, you'd think all their guns would come with giant swastikas on the stock and red painted metal, but Goebbels must not have had any authority over the factories

Fakes, made in the early 2000s. The only real German use marking that would ever be put on a M95 carbine would be a stamp on the underside of the stock. The action-and-stock stamped rifles are fakes made to up-value carbines that were at the time selling for about sixty bucks.

Everyone assumes Nazi stuff had big swastikas everywhere, but that's just because all the amateurs gravitate towards the obvious and conspicuous things. The actual German marking-and-cataloging system for weapons acceptance followed fairly simple systems and generally worked on a pass-fail appraisal system for foreign used equipment, with minimal markings beyond a single acceptance mark.

Just to add a little to what Vaarok said:

rule303 said:

Most collectors assume that any Nazi marked M95 is a fake.

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There are real ones out there but they are not marked like these. These are marked like the Germans marked new manufacture weapons, not like they (occasionally) marked weapons conscripted from other countries.

morcey2 said:

The waffenamt on the stock looks too recent and looks like it still has smoke stains around it on the finish.

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Not to mention that on both Jnapper's and RCArms.com's the waffenamt is not sanded like, and newer looking than, the post WWII Bulgarian markings!

Jnapper said:

from what I can see from lookin at it, there was definitly an eagle there that was removed

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AethelstanAegen said:

To be honest, that seems to me to be some of the better evidence that it might be legitimate.

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Nah, that is just where the Bulgarians removed the old serial number. You can see the remains of it on the right hand side of the grinding: a V, which would have been the old serial numbers postfix. That happened when the Bulgarians removed the old barrel and one in better condition was put on. In Europe the barrel is the gun, not the receiver. So the barrel is the part you'd take the serial number off of.

So in the end they are fake German markings. But, to paraphrase RCArms; if you like it who cares, as long as you don't try and pass it off as real when you re-sell it.
Heck, I've been trying to get one for my collection but every one wants an arm and a leg for them, even when they know the markings are fake. As one dealer put it about his $500 "Nazi" marked M95: "Someone will pay it eventually."