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#261946 01/22/12 12:48 PM
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ellenbr Offline OP
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The dates in the subject aren't that rigid and marks from before and after are most welcome. I'll be the 1st to admit that from the onset I really didn't have any intention of studying post WWII marks, but as time progresses the focus changes. Anyway, it appears that effort at the Suhl proof facility began again in either September or October 1945 and if the marks are indicative of the test administered, some form of Nitro powder was used till some time in 1946 when preliminary and final proof were administered/executed with black powder.






Albert Wilhelm Wolf

Then early 1947(I've seen one dated March 1947), maybe January 1947, there was a change in the proofmarks from an Eagle paired with the "M" material proof as well as the "N" semi-smokeless or "SP" black powder proof to a pairing with the Ore tub & pick axe within a Shield.

Sauer 354460 December 1946


April 1947 dated Simson


Also most of the Sauer examples have the model stamped on the bottom of the aft barrel lug. In 1945 & 1946 the model number is sometimes found stamped on the water table. In addition each tube either wears the touchmark of Sauer's script Gothic "S" or a large "D".


Then in Summer or 1949, or perhaps earlier in the year, the Nitro stamp resurfaces.










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Raimey
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ellenbr Offline OP
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At times I'm somewhat perplexed on a set of marks, but this German looking scattergun takes the cake. I may be looking micro when I need to be looking macro, but I am stumped for a time. I guess it could be from 1945 when the proofhouse wasn't in operation.











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Raimey
rse

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ellenbr Offline OP
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Someone in Suhl was administering marks in September 1945.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

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The only mystery here is the unproofed gun with the JS/R marking. IMHO someone liberated a "Gesteck", pre-assembled gunparts in the rough, and had them assembled and completed elsewhere. As the action is a Kerner-Anson type boxlock, it certainly originated in Suhl, but the engraving looks more Austrian-Bohemian to me. Or, such oval game scenes are often seen on Russian, Tula made over-unders.
The other guns are not mysterious at all. All the markings are shown in Gargela & Faktor's book "Zeichen auf Handfeuerwaffen" and the history is published by Hans-Jürgen Fritze in his book "Suhl - Heimat der Büchsenmacher". When the US Army took Suhl on April 3, 1945, they immediately closed down all gunmaking and sealed all shops. In the western US, British and French zones no Gunmaking exceopt for allied forces was allowed until 1951. Other in the east: On July 3, 1945 the Soviets came to Suhl. They saw things differently. The soviets wanted to make use of all production capacities of their part of Germany. In Suhl then they found several factories and about 450 independent outworkers, all in all nearly 4000 persons, sitting idle and unemployed. So on August 3 the SMATh (Soviet military administration Thuringia) ordered all the Suhl guntrade, including the Suhl government proofhouse, back to work. All the Suhl gunmakers had to produce shotguns only, no rifles, as fast as they could. All guns were to be shipped to Moscow as war reparations. The Soviets later reexported most of these guns to other countries, $$$ you know. On August 9, 1945 Russian officers accepted the first shipment of shotguns at the Sauer & Sohn company, assembled from existing parts. The Simson/BSW company was completely taken into Soviet ownership as a SAG = soviet owned stock company, starting production of shotguns on August 13, 1945. From October 25,1945 these "factories" were producing shotguns again: Waffenwerk Heinrichs; Sauer & Sohn; C.G.Haenel, Heinrich Krieghoff, Gebr.Merkel, Gebr.Rempt, Greifelt&Co, Immanuel Meffert, Friedrich Wilhelm Heym, Gebr. Heym, Chr. Funk, E.Eckholdt, F.W.Keßler, Fritz Kieß&Co., August Schüler, Ernst Kerner, Bernhard Merkel, Oskar Merkel&Co., A.W.Wolf, Franz Jäger&Co. The outworkers, stockers, locksmithes, polishers, actioners, hardeners, bluers, gun part makers and so on, again worked for one or several of these factories.
Shotgun production soon ran at high gear. All these guns had to pass the Suhl proofhouse before being shipped to Russia. In the remaining weeks of 1945 1539 guns were proofed, 21739 in 1946, 39961 in 1948. For comparision: In 1913, a very productive year for the Suhl guntrade, only 15643 shotguns passed proof.
As can be seen from your photos, at first, up to the end of 46, the Suhl proofhouse continued to use the 1940 proof stamps. There simply wasn't enough time to design, make and have approved new proofmarks, especially for political considerations. For 1947 new proofmarks were finally introduced, consisting of the "pick and sole" of the Suhl city crest, topped by the letters M,N or SP. The 15/DR/1 in an oval was the then code for the Suhl proofhouse authority. As there was no shotgun ammo production in eastern Germany then, the proofhouse had to make do with Russian-made proof cartridges supplied by the Soviets. As these cartridges were of very variable quality they sometimes missed the German, later CIP standards for nitro proof pressure, so the SP = black powder proofmark only was applied, in spite of the proofloads being smokeless. The Soviets, the only customers, did not care about this nicety.
In 1951 the new-founded GDR gained control over the guntrade and introduced "new" proofmarks, a simplified form of the 1893 -1939 ones. From 1974 on they again used marks very similar to the 1947-1950 ones.

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Axel,

Thank you very much for the detailed account of what took place in Suhl at the close of and in the years that immediately followed WW2. Very nice!

Buchseman

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Axel,
Add my thanks to Buchseman's. Suhl must have been pretty lucky. One of my hunting friends talked often about fields piled with lathes,milling machines,all manner of other machinery as well as bathtubs,wash basins,pipes,light fixtures,etc,etc, taken from the East Zone.He was in the prison camps 4 1/2 years and the Russian Gvt.let this "stuff" stay out in the weather the whole time,rusting away.On the other hand,the Russian civilians saved him, even though they didn't have much them selves.
Mike

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ellenbr Offline OP
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Interesting C.A. Funk stamps on a hammergun.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse

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I've never heard about this.

Originally Posted By: kuduae
The Soviets later reexported most of these guns to other countries, $$$ you know.


and find it hard to believe. With up to 2 million hunters, many of whom had their guns confiscated and lost in 1941, no export since 1930s and domestic firearms industry working only for the military since 1939, 40 thousand of guns a year was a drop of water in the desert. In fact, the demand for sporting weapons was so great, that besides reparation guns and guns made by sporting arms devisions of arsenals, mass-scale conversion of leftover military rifles into 28-ga bolt-action shotguns had to be carried out. The sheer number of post-1945 Suhl shotguns still kicking around suggests that even if some reexport happened, 'most' "reparation guns" stayed in the USSR.

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ellenbr Offline OP
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Thanks HD for putting us on the straight & narrow, giving us the other side of the coin.

Kind Regards,

Raimey
rse


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