Broken Promise - One More on the Way

Machodoc said:

Want me to mail a box to him?

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seriously!
I have several double-wall boxes.
they aren't that hard to find.
or throw it in a Plano case and get a box from one of the shipping stores.
but we ain't him (The Shipper) I guess.

somd_mustangs said:

seriously!
I have several double-wall boxes.
they aren't that hard to find.
or throw it in a Plano case and get a box from one of the shipping stores.
but we ain't him (The Shipper) I guess.

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+1! Plano cases aren't expensive and can be reused. This is the way to fly.

At this point, it's just easier/cheaper for me to bring it home when I visit Houston in September.

Abulg1972 said:

At this point, it's just easier/cheaper for me to bring it home when I visit Houston in September.

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I'm not that freakin' patient ... but I understand the peculiar situation.

Well, this one will finally be in my hands tomorrow or Thursday.

The rifle finally arrived and it's as nice in person as in the pictures. I have gotten "intimate" with the rifle and can feel no differences in the contour of the surface of the receiver ring. Also, the marks on the receiver rail are uniform and crisp from top to bottom and the receiver is uniform in color and finish - there are no visible or tactile differences between the metal on the rails and the metal on the ring. One would think that grinding off a crest would leave some depression on the ring and/or some flatter or worn edges to these marks. There is some speckling on the top of the ring but that's all it is - these marks are not remnants of any crest.

At the end of the day, I'll never know whether it was made without a crest or the crest was ground off in an extremely surgical manner, but my belief, based of what I see and feel, is that it never had a crest. In any event, it's a beauty.

It is a beauty and if it was ground it's the best grinding job I've ever seen. I don't think it was.

I'm going to take a picture of the two next to each other tonight to see if I can discern any visual differences.

By the way the light (glare) is reflecting off the receiver bridge area in the last three pics of the receiver I still hafta' go with scrubbed though a good job of it.

Why one may ask, I don't know.

Lou45 said:

By the way the light (glare) is reflecting off the receiver bridge area in the last three pics of the receiver I still hafta' go with scrubbed though a good job of it.

Why one may ask, I don't know.

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Yeah ... it's a beautiful rifle, but the photos of the area where the crest should be still have me undecided.

Lou45 said:

By the way the light (glare) is reflecting off the receiver bridge area in the last three pics of the receiver I still hafta' go with scrubbed though a good job of it.

Why one may ask, I don't know.

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The reflection makes it very difficult to get a feel for this remotely. You really have to see and feel it in person to truly appreciate it. In person, there is absolutely no difference in the contour, color, finish, etc. of the side of the receiver versus the top of the ring. The freckles are tarnish/blemishes and not remnants of a crest. IF this was scrubbed, it is the best job I've ever seen. Besides the look and feel of it, the reason that I believe it never had a crest is that the Argentinians really didn't take their time when they scrubbed crests. Most of them, at least the M1891s, look like someone smacked a grinder on top of the crest for 2 minutes and then moved on to the next one. The really nice ones I've seen look good, but they are show a lot of evidence of grinding. If this one had a crest, whoever removed it was extremely careful and almost performed robotic surgery on it. I just don't see the arsenals taking that much time and care to remove the crest. I'm not saying it didn't have a crest; I'm just saying that the evidence, in person, outweighs a scrub job.

Why it was done is not such a mystery. There are only two possible reasons. The first possibility is that it was made for a different country but never shipped. This one was made toward the end of the 1911 contract. It's possible that Argentina had all it needed and decided to sell some off. The second possibility is that it was scrubbed and intended to be sent for service in the Chaco War but never made it out of Argentina.

We'll never know. It's an interesting piece nonetheless, and truly magnificent. You can see from the stake marks on the screws that this one has never been taken apart, and, because of that, I don't ever intend to do so or remove the cosmolene.

I'll hafta' look at my 98/09 argey's again and though all are crested, I'll try to determine if there's any undulations on the receiver bridge in, around, and all about the crest and blank areas. The undulations I'm seeing in yours is what makes us thing it was scrubbed.

Lou45 said:

I'll hafta' look at my 98/09 argey's again and though all are crested, I'll try to determine if there's any undulations on the receiver bridge in, around, and all about the crest and blank areas. The undulations I'm seeing in yours is what makes us thing it was scrubbed.

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But that's the thing - there are no undulations. Whatever you're seeing is the effects of pictures. The receiver ring is absolutely uniform.

There have been some interesting comments in Gunboards.

One experienced collector suggested that to create that uniformity, it would have needed to be lathed with an off-center rotation to get the profile that straight for sighting across the top, and then there would be transition lines on each side of the ring from the differing radii.

Another poster theorized that, based on condition and the uniformity of the ring, this could have been intended as a presentation rifle that was never finished. There is some history of these being made with special crests, and some of them were done in Argentina. In those cases, great time and effort would have been taken to remove the crest.

All agree that any scrub job was not the typical Argentine scrub.

Abulg1972 said:

One experienced collector suggested that to create that uniformity, it would have needed to be lathed with an off-center rotation to get the profile that straight for sighting across the top, and then there would be transition lines on each side of the ring from the differing radii.

Another poster theorized that, based on condition and the uniformity of the ring, this could have been intended as a presentation rifle that was never finished. There is some history of these being made with special crests, and some of them were done in Argentina. In those cases, great time and effort would have been taken to remove the crest.

All agree that any scrub job was not the typical Argentine scrub.

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In one of your last photos I could see that there appears to be a continuous "grain" from lathe work that the factory roll marks penetrate. I'm more persuaded that it wasn't scrubbed.

The second theory is probably heading in the right direction. It could have, for example, been set aside for one of the university roll marks, but never stamped. I can imagine someone saying, "Hey, Juancho! This one looks too nice. I'm taking it home with me. Don't mark it, OK?"

These pictures don't help much but I did measure the thickness of the receiver rings (one end of the calipers inside the chamber and one end on the top of the ring) and they are almost identical: the crested one is 0.357" and the uncrested one is 0.356".