kuduae
(.400 member)
24/10/15 10:26 PM
Re: Mauser Origins-Help with Proof Marks

Sorry, here is a misunderstanding. 3079 is NOT the gun's serial number, but the ledger number of the Vienna proofhouse. Such ledger numbers were marked by the Austro-Hungarian, Austrian and Czech proofhouses, and in different form by the German Zella-Mehlis proofhouse. They were given in the sequence guns were proofed,regardless of maker and model. So f.i. Vienna 1924 number 3078 may have been a Mannlicher - Schoenauer, 3079 your Mauser action rifle by an unknown gunsmith, 3080 a break-open single shot by Springer, Vienna.
The matching serial number of your rifle is 168, but this is another problem: The rifle was built on a scrubbed Gewehr 98 pre-1918 military action. These German military rifles were identified such: The top of the receiver ring was marked with the maker, f.i.Mauser, Danzig, Erfurt, DWM and so on, and the year of manufactoring. Each factory started it's numbers with #1 each year and continued to 9999. Then it restarted with #1 again, a letter a suffixed. So there were many rifles with the serial number 168: Factories x years of production.
Small gunsmithes did and do not have to number their guns in sequence. They are only required to give the gun a number that may be identified by their books. F.i., I have a custom made Mauser rifle # 10248 and know an also custom made Heeren rifle # 15944. In both cases the serial number is the birthday of the owner, Feb 10, 1948 and Sept 15, 1944!So your gunsmith, after scrubbing the receiver of the original markings, may have reused the last three digits of the original serial number as "his own", remarking them on the receiver, barrel and stock. This was commonly done to keep the fitted parts sorted when disassembled for finishing.
"House numbers" like the ones you mention were used by the Ferlach gunmakers only, not used by other Austrian or German gunmakers outside that town. They were the fire insurance numbers assigned to their houses originally. "Ferlach #1" was the church, #2 the town hall and so on.



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