A pretty non import marked arsenal 974

[SVT-40]

Gorgeous Type 56 carbine... Non import marked arsenal 974. Unfired condition. It also has a stamped receiver cover. Enjoy.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Well thats just weird.  Are you SURE there is no import mark? 

[Dino412]

Maybe the Import mark is on the barrel under the gas tube? Wouldn't that stamped cover be on a stamped receiver?

[Loose}{Cannon]

Maybe the Import mark is on the barrel under the gas tube? Wouldn't that stamped cover be on a stamped receiver?

You would think so... 

They also had some receiver marked guns that the cover could be swapped leaving you with a "non import marked" rifle, but I dont think that is the case here.

This may be the ONLY non /26\ rifle in the US I have seen to have missed the import mark....

[SVT-40]

Nope... No marks anywhere...

Okay, here is the deal...

Back when Chinese imports were arriving by the boat full there were some importers who kept some items for themselves...

Now I'm not saying they did anything unlawful, but some items just for some unknown reason slipped under the radar, and were not import marked. I'm sure it was simply a mistake. But when these importers sold their personal collections... Well they became available.

Anomaliys in every field of endeavour exist....

So this rifle is one of those. 

The "Precision Degree Gun" Chinese type 56 carbine I have in my collection would be another example...

[SVT-40]

Maybe the Import mark is on the barrel under the gas tube? Wouldn't that stamped cover be on a stamped receiver?

You would think so... 

They also had some receiver marked guns that the cover could be swapped leaving you with a "non import marked" rifle, but I dont think that is the case here.

This may be the ONLY non /26\ rifle in the US I have seen to have missed the import mark....

Nope. There are many out there.

I have at least two others in my collection...
This one.


And this one.

[SVT-40]

The early Century imports with the electro etch markings were faked.. I was a early buyer from century back in 1984 and 85.

Got some beautiful carbines from them. But the three unmarked carbines were from the personal collection of a Chinese importer.


Very early Century import in my collection from 1984.

[Loose}{Cannon]

The early Century imports with the electro etch markings were faked

Can you clarify this please?   thanks

So all three of your non marked guns came from an importers personal collection in which he didnt mark them.  Cant be many of these examples out there.... I have been looking for examples for years and yours are the only non /26\ thus far. I remember you posting the "Precision Degree Gun" on Gunboards.   Nice rifle.

[Loose}{Cannon]

What Im saying is..

if it were common occurrence for rifles to not be import marked by the importer, there would be an equal or greater ratio of non /26\ guns vs /26\ guns not having an import mark in the wild.  We simply do not see this.  There is an overwhelming majority of /26\ guns that are not import marked. In fact, yours are the only ones I have ever seen that would be non /26\ guns.  Theres like 5 non import marked SKSs on gunbroker 7 days a week for the last 10 years....

My simple question is, if it were so common.....  where are the mass quantities of non /26\ guns not having an import mark?   By theory, there should be more as there have been more non 26 guns imported.

[SVT-40]

The early Century imports with the electro etch markings were faked

Can you clarify this please?   thanks

So all three of your non marked guns came from an importers personal collection in which he didnt mark them.  Cant be many of these examples out there.... I have been looking for examples for years and yours are the only non /26\ thus far. I remember you posting the "Precision Degree Gun" on Gunboards.   Nice rifle.

Regarding the early Century guns with the electro etch markings, I was agreeing with you. There were unscrupulous folks who either replaced the top covers as you indicated, or removed the importer marks and refinished the cover...

The refinish jobs were usually poor, and not done on new condition carbines... As the process was pretty obvious.



I agree there are not many "non  import marked" Chines Type 56 carbines out in circulation, which for whatever reason missed being marked.

But they are out there.

I can use another instance of non marked surplus rifles as evidence. In about 2002 I saw an add in the Shot Gun news for "Swedish Mauser rifles for sale". It was just a small listing , and not any sort of real commercial listing. The add only listed a phone number, which had the same prefix as where my Father lived in Arizona. So I called the number and spoke to a guy who confirmed he had between 100 and 200 Swedish Mauser and rolling block rifles for sale.

Him location was about 3 miles from where my Father lived. So I made a trip out to see my Father, and also to check out what the guy had for sale. The location was in a rural residential part of town, and the property was about 3 acres with a number of out buildings on the property.

The seller showed me to a building chich had all the rifles inside. I went through them and picked out about 25 to buy.  We then went up to the main house, where the gentleman was also running a business which made silver buckles and other adornments and things for western wear. There were a few people running buffing wheels and there was felt and lint from the buffing wheeles everywhere. I noticed a few other Swedish rifles covered in lint leaning against the walls..

The were absolotely the nicest Swedish Mauser rifles I had ever seen..

We reached a deal to include these rifles. Payment was given and off I went.

That night while examining the rifles at my dads house I noticed not one of them had import markings...

Zero nada.

Fast forward another month, and another trip to see my Dad and to maybe pick up a few more Sweed's.
This time when I asked the seller about the origon of the rifles I was told he and his brother had imported them..

I asked about why no import markings?

he just shrugged his shoulders...

I bought about ten more that trip.

I still have about 15 or so Sweed's from them in my collection.

So just because someting should have certain marks does not mean they will always have those marks...

I also have a Czech made Vs 52/57 in my collection which "should" have importer marks on  it... But it doesent..

[SVT-40]

What Im saying is..

if it were common occurrence for rifles to not be import marked by the importer, there would be an equal or greater ratio of non /26\ guns vs /26\ guns not having an import mark in the wild.  We simply do not see this.  There is an overwhelming majority of /26\ guns that are not import marked. In fact, yours are the only ones I have ever seen that would be non /26\ guns.  Theres like 5 non import marked SKSs on gunbroker 7 days a week for the last 10 years....

My simple question is, if it were so common.....  where are the mass quantities of non /26\ guns not having an import mark?   By theory, there should be more as there have been more non 26 guns imported.

I don't think it was "common" at all. I never used that term.

In fact I believe it was very un-common and rare.

I know of one guy who purposely did this.. He kept the unusual and differently marked carbines for his own collection.

I simply was in the right place at the right time and was able to get some of his collection when he disposed of it

I'm currently in the process of doing a complete inventory of my collection. When I'm done I'll check my records and see just how many un-marked carbines I have, and what arsenals produced them.

Happy collecting!!

[Loose}{Cannon]

Sure thing...  Report back on any more non import marked non-26 guns you come across.   

[Greasemonkey]

Now I'm not saying they did anything unlawful, but some items just for some unknown reason slipped under the radar, and were not import marked. I'm sure it was simply a mistake. But when these importers sold their personal collections... Well they became available.

Anomaliys in every field of endeavour exist....

Wonder if it "Your Honor, for some unknown reason, it must have slipped under the radar" would actually be a tangible defense in a federal court of law. It amounts to doing 95mph down I-95, as long as you don't get caught, you slipped under the radar. Especially when the federal requirements say they had to be import stamped, 72 hours from the time they arrived if I'm not mistaken.. 

Cool SKS 

[SVT-40]

Now I'm not saying they did anything unlawful, but some items just for some unknown reason slipped under the radar, and were not import marked. I'm sure it was simply a mistake. But when these importers sold their personal collections... Well they became available.

Anomaliys in every field of endeavour exist....

Wonder if it "Your Honor, for some unknown reason, it must have slipped under the radar" would actually be a tangible defense in a federal court of law. It amounts to doing 95mph down I-95, as long as you don't get caught, you slipped under the radar. Especially when the federal requirements say they had to be import stamped, 72 hours from the time they arrived if I'm not mistaken.. 

Cool SKS 

Thanks! It is a beautiful little carbine...

I don't know how the individual CEO of a import corp. could be held criminally liable because a minimum wage worker forgot to stamp a few items... Or they tried to stamp them, and the machine malfunctioned...

Poop happens..

Probably the worst that could have happened was their import license suspended or something similar...
All administrative.

But these import companies only existed for a few years and then were gone. Millions made, owners back to China or Hong Kong. Then poof gone. I'm sure there was little to no enforcement related to a few items missing the marking process...

Which was probably more important to the BATFE, keeping track of the literally millions of arms and their serial numbers coming in from China, or making sure every single arm was import stamped?

I'm sure it was like the wild wild west...

[Greasemonkey]

I don't know how the individual CEO of a import corp. could be held criminally liable because a minimum wage worker forgot to stamp a few items... Or they tried to stamp them, and the machine malfunctioned...

Poop happens..

Which was probably more important to the BATFE, keeping track of the literally millions of arms and their serial numbers coming in from China, or making sure every single arm was import stamped?

I can't say... I ain't a lawyer... and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But.. I'm sure you ask the Alphabet Boys.. they would say, we didn't write a whole book exclusively for importers with rules and laws to follow which included import stamping to just waste trees, ink and tax dollars.  But, hey afterall... I mean it's just the ATF.. what would they know about import stamps, requirements, and what they perfer. I'm not an ATF agent so I guess honestly,  I'm not qualified to answer..

But, hey cool rifle.

[martin08]

I've seen (and drooled over) these high condition non-import marked carbines over the years on Gunboards Forum.  The M21 and Precision Degree examples are doubly interesting.   The stamped cover is a gem, too.

Understanding now that all of these unmarked items came from a single source makes much more sense than having picked them up individually over the years.   It's easier to grasp that one or a few particular importers intentionally skipped the import stamp for personal collecting, rather than a countrywide phenomenon of randomly omitted stamps.  As LC notes, the non-/26\ guns without import stamps just don't appear on the market.  But the gathering of a small cache of non-/26\ from a single source obviously took place.

Seems like a case of the exception, rather than the norm.

[Power Surge]

I was going to mention the Precision Degree Rifle.... until you said you were the one who owned it...lol.

That precision rifle has always been one of my unicorns to find, since supposedly there were 400 sold according the letter.

Until last year, yours was the only known one. Then I was contacted by someone else who has one. But yours is still a mystery.... because of the "accuracy gun" chinese characters. This other gun, is not only an older rifle, but has no such markings like yours. Yet, this person bought it new from Navy Arms, still has the box, and even the Navy Arms paper it was wrapped in, along with the invoice stating the serial and saying it's a precision degree model. But there is nothing on the rifle identifying it as such, like yours has.

[newchi]

Im sure the non import marked ones can be easily explained away by either,
0h **** the ups truck is here, stuff 2 more in that crate so we can ship them.
or
Someone puts the whole wrong crate on a truck,
or, and doubly so if it was me working there,
f**k the markings, im using my employee discount and having one of the nicer ones for myself.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Unfortunately newchi, US federal pound you in the azz penatentury law spicifically states that an importer MUST mark the firearms as stated by GM within 72hrs after receiving the firearms.  Im remind of a video I saw some years back of Samco Global detailing what they do etc and they had to hire extra staff and work around the clock to comply with this Fed law. 

Again, if this were a common practice.... Why after 12 years of sks consuming my life are these three carbines posted here the ONLY non /26\ guns I have seen (and several have been watching/looking)?  One cannot simply state that any non marked gun is an importer oops, or a scrub/fake. 

This is the equivalent as if some importer in Canada just elected to not pin magazines.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Note: The importer must ensure that these marks of identification appear on each firearm. If the manufacturer did not mark them, the importer must place the required markings on the firearm within 15 days after their release from Customs and Border Protection custody. The Director, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives may authorize other means of firearms identification upon receipt of a letter application from the importer, submitted in duplicate, showing that such other means of identification is reasonable and will not hinder the effective administration of the regulations.

Ok...  So its 15 days.