Pair of Nines Beats Full-House!

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Of course you are asking, "When the heck does a pair of nines beat a full-house?"

Answer:

Only when the pair are two 'nines out of ten' on the rarity scale, and the full house is entire Mosin Nagant collecting community! I can't believe that I didn't have ANY competition on Gunbroker when these two scarcities popped up for auction a couple of weeks ago. One bid, and done.

So, ladies and gents, the cards are laid out on the table. When opportunity arises, it is time to strike. As these two "Nine out of Ten" M38's became available, they were bought. The chance may never come around again.

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The least common is the 1943 Izhevsk, in an atypical M38 stock, and East German /1\-stamped. Unless my search capabilities have completely gone to the dogs, references in collector's forums to this DDR variant in collections can be counted on the fingers. It is that scarce.

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The stock is also very unusual, with full pressed rear escutcheon (a few have been noted with oversized screwed-on rear plates), front half-liner, no bayo groove, and no rear barrel band finger relief cut. It has the triangle cartouche on the upper heel and the tell-tale dark brown shellac, which are both associated with the rarely seen DDR-style stock. All the matching numbers except the barrel serial are found in electropencil, which is typical of a late Soviet arsenal refurbishment after return from East Germany. But for the uniqueness of this variant, I will certainly take it as it is. Still in cosmo under the wood line.

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The other is a 1941 Izhevsk, in a post-war laminated stock and MO-stamped with 41/52 double date. It is a little easier to find references to MO marked M38's, but not by much. Even with the recent Molot bunch of imports, within which a few more MO double dates were reported, references to this variant are likely numbered in the dozens, rather than hundreds or thousands.

M38_sDDR-MO_009.jpg



And while the stock style, itself, is not unusual - laminate post-war M44 with bayonet groove and rear crossbolt - the pressed sling slot escutcheons are atypically blued. Pretty cool. The matching numbers on this gun are also electropenciled, but again, so it goes. The entire action of the gun is also much more smoothly polished than the DDR counterpart, and is also expected from the usual MO refurbishment process.

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Hope you all enjoyed! Thanks for looking.


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Hmm I still need an m38... Nice pick ups! I guess you slipped it in past me as I've been slacking on my gun broker surfing recently... Probably because I expect my c and r next month some time
 
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