Thanks for the reply. I enjoy sharing info about my new acquisitions. Perhaps it will help others when they acquire similar rifles.
I am grateful for your posting. Firstly, because this is a strikingly beautiful and elegant gun. Everything fits, gracious lines, even the scope blends in.
Secondly I am grateful because I was able to learn more, inspired by your presentation. Your mention of the mysterious Röchling Spezialstahl (Sonderlaufstahl) R7L had been (briefly) answered by me in this forum several weeks earlier already. While already substantial, my response certainly opened more new questions than it was able to answer.
Thirdly, it inspired me to research a bit about the old firm of Waffen-Eblen in Stuttgart (finally closed for good in June/July 2001, a pont of semi-false information in another forum notwithstanding; however, one scion of the family, Mr Jürgen Warkus, still works in another gunshop in Pforzheim, namely at Waffen-Landmesser). And this research attempt opened a lot of perspectives about German gun dealers and their occasional connections to Power and Might. Such famous names like Otto Bock and Ludwig Schiwy come to mind. Quite like them, Eblen was a sort of "Hoflieferant", highly esteemed as such, and was regularly sourcing from excellent gunmakers. Just that after 1933, he purveyed not to royalty, but to some higher-ranking Nazis (including none other than Hermann Göring) and to their côterie.
Fourthly, as a trained historian (among other things), I would like to direct any serious would-be researchers to an always overlooked, but very large archival fonds, formally very homogenous as per provenance and style, materially however very colourful and different, which has the indubitable advantage of still EXISTING intact (and not having been burned through allied bombings in 1943-1945).
Namely, the
Entnazifizierungsakten. Most Germans between 1945 and 1950, and certainly almost every businessman had to go through this process. These files paradoxically yield very little of value about their purported (!) purpose, namely the de-nazification. Almost everything they contain in this respect, are lies and white-washing.
But they are an ENORMOUS treasure for social and economic history. Gun researchers are not yet aware of that.
Carcano
