I know I haven't posted anything real new on this board in a while but I hope that will begin to change as I've gotten my Vietnam items together into a very nice display, much better than my previous one. Anyway I've had this little rifle a number of years and I think I mentioned it in a post back in 2013 about the time I came into possession of it but here are some more detailed photos of it and this particular rifle's story. I purchased this from the son of a Vietnam marine who, according to him, picked this up off of an enemy sniper back around 1967 or 68 (he couldn't remember the exact year). I thought that the son would want to hold on to it but he stated that his dad just wanted the rifle gone as it brought back some bad memories and any amount of money would be better than those. I asked what he wanted for it and to my surprise he came back with an offer of only $50 since it was very beat up and, according to him, "unusable". I was happy to pay that and thus my first Vietnam bring back rifle was acquired. After I researched it a bit more I found that this rifle was an extremely rare variant of the French berthier made only for the Indochinese colonists to replace losses following WW1. As a part of 15,200 rifles made total and only one of 2,200 rifles in its particular order I was surprised something like it even came by me. Moreover I read through more research that these variants are extremely rare to find at all as they were never imported anywhere and most were lost to time.
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Here are some more pictures. Looking at the serial number (A33288) everything on this rifle matched except for the bolt head and trigger guard assembly. -
And finally here some pictures of the butt of the rifle and a shot of where this rifle calls home in my display amongst some of my other Vietnam bring backs, including my dad's VC flag as a backdrop behind the rifles.Comment
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Really nice displays, that Berthier is very uncommon as a provenanced piece. $50? Wow. And of course the capper is your father's flag. Really nice.Comment
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