Bringing an old thread back to life, never noticed last comments. After much reconsideration, I'd have to agree these are IC.
After looking into early imports and not having much luck, it seems as if the earliest Chinese SKS's were from Israel.
Being the CAI ST A VT is missing two characters from the standard CAI ST ALB VT, yet are identical in font, and size, I would imagine the "A" quickly turned into "ALB".
The fact that we received only 9 & 12 Mills, with the exception of a Russian that Stoned just got (and possibly a few others secretly roaming the states), when Lebanon was such a huge melting pot of SKS's (Germans, Russians, Chinese, Romanians, probably more) means that when Israel invaded Lebanon & captured millions of dollars worth of weapons, they must have done some major sorting when they started exporting.
We find Russian SKS's from Canada that are Arabic marked from the same period. Israel sent different rifles to different regions it seems, or maybe it was just whatever the importers worked out with them at the time.
(See Israel Cap-Sino-PLO Sticky for more info on the war and cap'd weapons if ya want)
Since we figure these are an earlier import (Probably NOT by much) I would assume these were also from Israel, but possibly a different batch. It could have been the ATF that said to add the "LB" to the "A" with Century's next batch, or Century just chose to be more specific, but I believe it was a separate batch.
There is no reason I can think of that the PLO would just receive 9's and 12's when aid was so plentiful, even from early 60's.
That sand in the receiver is identical to many reports of IC guns, in both Stoned's & Cannon's examples. The fact that Stoned's stock is sanded, and that Cannon's stock looks like it could have gotten the common IC red shellac supports them being IC. The sand looks just like Cannon's arab marked 12 mill right when I bought it, all caked to the gun.
I just found an 8 mill on Gunbroker with the same import mark, with matching numbers and similar patina, so I pulled the trigger on it. This seems to be a VERY small batch, as looking throughout other older forum posts and photos of older imported SKS's I cannot find any other examples. Not a single one. And my brain is FRIED after looking the last few days. I could be just missing them, however.
Here is the 8 mill. I decided to join the club.
Very similar Patina to IC's, like my current 9 mill, and your guys' letter series:
The fact that there are less than 10 arab marked IC's while theres about 40+ known, And since we've only seen 3 examples of these, means it's not enough to say they are NOT IC's because of lack of arabic marks.
These feature caked sand, matching patina, the correct era of production, ruby red stock, a sanded stock, and an import mark of the same era as the IC's.
I believe it's safe to say.
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