May 13-15, 2025 Firearms and Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 5/13/2025
This 11mm M1871 Mauser is one of a group of “old Mausers” that the Irish Defense Forces sold to arms dealer Sam Cummings (Interarms) in 1959, along with shiploads of Irish SMLE rifles, handguns, machine guns, and artillery. The story of the Mausers’ sale and acquisition can be found in two articles in Man at Arms magazine: “The Irish Howth Mausers: Where Are They Now” (August 2019), and “The ‘Howth’ Mauser Saga: An Update” (December 2022). Both of these articles conclusively confirm the Irish provenance of many of the Model 1871 Mauser rifles that are now in American gun collections. The bayonet lug on his rifle was altered significantly (moved from the side of the upper barrel band to the underside of the upper band) by the Irish Volunteers to accommodate an altered French Gras rifle bayonet, and this alteration is one of the telltale indicators of an Irish Howth Mauser. This rifle was purchased directly from Potomac Arms in Alexandria, Virginia, (Interarms retail outlet) by a previous owner in the 1970s. This Wurttemburg-made rifle is marked “Oberndorf”. Its previous owner purchased it as a gift for his brother-in-law in Ohio, but when he shipped it, a postal employee inadvertently ran over the boxed rifle with a forklift, shattering its grip. The late Paul Smith, a noted firearms restorer and craftsman, put it back together in 2014, with a fiberglass reinforcing rod inside its grip. One has to look very carefully to see the repair. The bolt stop screw does not go all the way into the threaded hole on the bolt, although all of the other parts have matching numbers. This Mauser rifle was carried (but not fired) for about ten years in various Living History programs that centered on the activities of the “Fingal Volunteers” (5th Bn, Dublin Brigade, Irish Volunteers) during the Battle of Ashbourne—the only tactical success on the part of the insurgents in the 1916 Easter Rising—and it was a focus of attention among the attendees at a number of these historical events. This rifle was displayed in exhibits at presentations about Irish Nationalist arms to several gun-collecting clubs in the Mid-Atlantic region, and it was featured in “Guns of the Easter Rising” in the September 2013 issue of the American Rifleman magazine and also in a 2004 article about Irish Nationalist arms in Shooter’s Bible. The Irish Volunteers only smuggled 1,500 of these Mausers into Howth and Kilcoole from Germany in 1914. Many of them were destroyed during and after the 1916 Easter Rising, and, as such, it is estimated that Interarms was only able to bring a few hundred of these guns into the United States from Ireland in the late 1950s and early 1970s, and less than thirty of them remain in Ireland, mostly in museums. Many of those rifles in private collections in Ireland have, by regulations, been rendered inoperable and they command exorbitant prices at auction. PROVENANCE: Kenneth Smith-Christmas collection. CONDITION: Very good, metal is a smooth, soft brown patina throughout, possibly rebrowned before use by the Irish. Legends are softened but legible. Stock with handling marks and impressions throughout as befits a rebellion used gun and with aforementioned repair. Mechanically fine, bore is good with strong rifling and frosting throughout.