gew98 Posted 14 April , 2015 Share Posted 14 April , 2015 A good friend relented and let me have a beautiful 1915 DWM gew98. Hard to comeby date/maker in this condition...and she can shoot. Next is a bavarian marked gew98 muzz cover - on the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gew98 Posted 14 April , 2015 Author Share Posted 14 April , 2015 some more views. All it lacks to be perfect is a # 48 front band and # 48 cockpeice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trajan Posted 14 April , 2015 Share Posted 14 April , 2015 Nice rifle, and a very nice gift - and aren't the DWM ones rather on the rare side? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gew98 Posted 14 April , 2015 Author Share Posted 14 April , 2015 Well not really. DWM 1916 and 1917 made gew98's are fairly common. 1915 production seems to have been mostly lost in the war. There was a 1914 DWM reported...now that would be a rare beast !. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaki Posted 14 April , 2015 Share Posted 14 April , 2015 Congratulations, very nice addition, I agree early war G98's are rare, I have a 1915 Amberg G98 with the butt stock disc stamped to the 164th regiment I think from memory that's a Hannoverian regiment. regards khaki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gew98 Posted 14 April , 2015 Author Share Posted 14 April , 2015 As for 1915 production , Mauser oberndorf , Danzig , spandau , and Amberg are not rare . Rare and scarce 15 dated gew98s would be Oberspree Kornbusch , ERFURT ,JP Sauer & DWM in that order. I passed on a mathcing but front band and rod Amberg 1915 a few days ago - had gorgeous wood but metal was very dirty and lots of plum to browning from neglect. The 15 Amberg i have is flat gorgeous with alot of burling in the stock. But any regimental marked gew98 is a nice find - especially a wartime dated example. I have a 1913 Amberg that is marked to the prussian 68th Inf regt. Alot of collectors thought that disc not correct for that rifle....until I then supplied them with pics of it very corroded in place before I removed all the active rust...... and then D. Storz's book on the gew98 came out and detailed how in 1914 Amberg was forced to open it's new production gew98's in storage for release to the prussians. My 1913 Amberg was one of them no doubt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trajan Posted 15 April , 2015 Share Posted 15 April , 2015 Well not really. DWM 1916 and 1917 made gew98's are fairly common. 1915 production seems to have been mostly lost in the war. There was a 1914 DWM reported...now that would be a rare beast !. Thanks for the correction... Yes, it seems that DWM may have produced overall more than Mauser... Congratulations, very nice addition, I agree early war G98's are rare, I have a 1915 Amberg G98 with the butt stock disc stamped to the 164th regiment I think from memory that's a Hannoverian regiment. regards khaki Spot on Khaki! 4. Hannoversches Infanterie-Regiment Nr.164, see: http://wiki-de.genealogy.net/IR_164 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khaki Posted 15 April , 2015 Share Posted 15 April , 2015 Thank you Julian, The link was very interesting I hadn't seen it before. khaki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevie Posted 15 April , 2015 Share Posted 15 April , 2015 A nice looking rifle! I have a 1902 dated DANZIG example, marked to the 29th Infantry Regiment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenchtrotter Posted 15 April , 2015 Share Posted 15 April , 2015 Lovely rifle. Does the Z signify anything? Or just part of serial number. TT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gew98 Posted 15 April , 2015 Author Share Posted 15 April , 2015 The 'Z' is the alpha prefix of the serial. Germany produced military arms in lots of 10,000 in sequential serial numbers. When at the end of th e10K a letter block was then added like A , then B , C etc etc in 10k item lots. Only in WW2 did they deviate from this. If you apply this ' Z ' block there should be about 270,000 gew98's made by DWM in 1915. But as well apparently the majority of DWM 1915 production was lost in the war as they are fairly scarce to come by in matching trim let alone at all. This also applies to 1914 production by all makers. High attrition in the first couple years fo the war and not a large amount of gew98 manufactured in 1914 make them rather scarce. I do have a matching 1914 Oberndorf , a matching 1914 spandau , a matching 1914 Danzig , and a bolt mismatch 1914 Amberg. If there is validity to a 1914 DWM...oi !.....I have more searching to do !. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trajan Posted 16 April , 2015 Share Posted 16 April , 2015 Thank you Julian, Happy to help! The 'Z' is the alpha prefix of the serial. Germany produced military arms in lots of 10,000 in sequential serial numbers. When at the end of th e10K a letter block was then added like A , then B , C etc etc in 10k item lots. Only in WW2 did they deviate from this. If you apply this ' Z ' block there should be about 270,000 gew98's made by DWM in 1915. But as well apparently the majority of DWM 1915 production was lost in the war as they are fairly scarce to come by in matching trim let alone at all. This also applies to 1914 production by all makers. High attrition in the first couple years fo the war and not a large amount of gew98 manufactured in 1914 make them rather scarce. I do have a matching 1914 Oberndorf , a matching 1914 spandau , a matching 1914 Danzig , and a bolt mismatch 1914 Amberg. If there is validity to a 1914 DWM...oi !.....I have more searching to do !. That sounds like a nice collection! But I think I read (has to be in Storz?) that the block allocations were not always filled up? That is to say that a new letter block might be started on before 10,000 had been made in the previous letter block? I certainly remember (or mis-remember!) some comment about how the exact number of Gew.98 made by any one concern could not be calculated because of this problem! Please correct me if I am wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Haselgrove Posted 16 April , 2015 Share Posted 16 April , 2015 Julian, Actually you probably read it in a thread on GWF "Gew 98 serial number suffix". Regards, Michael. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trajan Posted 16 April , 2015 Share Posted 16 April , 2015 Actually you probably read it in a thread on GWF "Gew 98 serial number suffix". Hi Michael, Probably a mixture of yes and no! I see from your post at: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=217692&hl=%2Bgew+%2Bserial+%2Bnumber+%2Bsuffix dated September 2014 that you got the information from Storz, while as per my thread at: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=224317&hl= I got and read said book in February this year - and was mightily impressed by it! Julian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gew98 Posted 17 April , 2015 Author Share Posted 17 April , 2015 Hi Michael, Probably a mixture of yes and no! I see from your post at: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=217692&hl=%2Bgew+%2Bserial+%2Bnumber+%2Bsuffix dated September 2014 that you got the information from Storz, while as per my thread at: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=224317&hl= I got and read said book in February this year - and was mightily impressed by it! Julian Storz's work was excellent. He made considerably less mistakes than Law did on his backbone of the wehrmacht. As well Storz did not use fake weapons as a basis for some bad assumptions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trajan Posted 17 April , 2015 Share Posted 17 April , 2015 Storz's work was excellent. He made considerably less mistakes than Law did on his backbone of the wehrmacht. As well Storz did not use fake weapons as a basis for some bad assumptions. To be quite honest - well, you all know that I know very little about rifles and carbines and the like, but although the translation was patchy in places I enjoyed reading it and learnt a lot! Of course I skipped a fair chunk of the bits and pieces on technical specifications and the like, but there was so much ancilliary data that was frankly very interesting. And clearly (see above post 14) a fair bit of that sunk into the inner recesses of the grey matter! Trajan Trajan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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