Got one great acquisition this month - an FN 1924 Mauser made on contract for the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which became Yugoslavia in 1928. Yugoslavian Mausers are pretty common in North America, but only the post-war Communist era models - the M48 and M24/47, which was a rebuild of an FN M1924 or Kragujevac M24 (which was the same rifle actually made IN Yugoslavia) with a new barrel with hooded front sight. Because almost all the M1924 or M24s were rebuilt to the M24/47 standard, you rarely find original pre-communist Yugo Mausers.

This one is all original, with a great monarchist crest and FN factory adress, along with the CXC stamp for Serb, Croats and Slovens and clear King Alexander I cartouche. It's all matching, and came with a postwar-era Yugo sling. As far as history goes, obviously it was used by the Yugoslav Royal Army up until the German invasion in 1941, but Yugoslavia went to utter shit in the 40s (not unlike Yugoslavia in the 90s), at which point it would have ended up in the hands of Communist Partisans, Serb Royalist partisans (Chetniks - some of whom then allied with the Germans to fight the Communists), Serb collaborationist government, Croatian Fascist militia (Ustasha) or regulars (Croatian Home Guard), pretty much all of whom fought everybody else at one point or another. I don't know how it managed to escape the Communist-era reworks, but it's a great uncommon WW2 rifle.

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I also picked up a WW2 M1 bayonet for my Garand, made by American Fork & Hoe sometime between 1942-1945. Still has the original WW2 resin-impregnated canvas scabbard.

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Finally, although this is in no way military and probably dates to postwar, I picked up a uniquely Canadian gun, a Cooey Model 60 .22 repeater. Cooey made about 2 million inexpensive .22s and shotguns between 1919 and 1961, when they were bought by Winchester, none of which were exported. I would say most Canadians alive today between age 80 and 30 probably learned to shoot with a Cooey .22, and in my experience the Model 60 is the most common. They actually tend to shoot pretty accurately due to the long, heavy barrel, and the fact that though they were simple, they were well made. I bought this mainly because I wanted to have a .22 around for new shooters, it's a great piece of Canadiana, and at $50 it was cheaper than the bayonet.

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After years of looking, I finally managed to find a decent Remington Model 8 in .35 Rem for my collection of prohibition and gangster era guns. Prior to this I found lots of .30 and .32 calibers, but I wanted to actually be able to shoot it, and a few really beat .35s, but this was the first one I found where everything was right. It unfortunately has a replaced and painted front sight, but that's an easy fix, and is otherwise in great shape and functional. Can't wait to shoot it! Now to find a pre-WW2 Winchester 1907 with an uncracked forend...

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Nyles, words cannot express my jealousy in regards to your Remington Model 8. Great looking piece.

I too hope to find a -1907. Great-Grandpa carried one of those as the Sheriff backs in the early thirties.

And I'm sure you're aware of how to manufacture brass for the .351 WSL loading.

A few recent additions:

I picked up this 1925 Oviedo Spanish Mauser M1893 recently, in pretty good shape, all matching except for the bolt. This is actually pretty interesting, because at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War when the Republican government armed all the left-wing militias (socialist Popular Front, communist International Brigades, anarchist CNT, Trotskyist POUM), rifles and bolts had been stored separately and no effort was made to match them up on issue. This accounts for alot of the reports of rifles jamming and blowing up on the Republican side. So it's probably not going to be a shooter (I'll have to get a set of headspace gauges), but it's a great piece of history. I'm currently reading George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and it's quite an interesting depiction of this time.

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I also picked up that Winchester 1907 I've been wanting, a post-war model with the later improvements (heavier forend, enlarged plunger head) in really beautiful shape. However, I really want a pre-war model so I'm probably going to trade it for one at the next gun show I go to. The mean reason I bought this one is it came with the very rare 10 round law enforcement magazine (unfortunately pinned to 5 rounds, because this is Canada) and 50 rounds of ammo, and the price was right.

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Finally, and this is a little different from what I usually do, I came across an old 1930s Stevens 620 shotgun at work that someone had done some work on - reblued it, shortened the butt and added a rubber butt pad, replaced the missing front sight bead with a piece of solder. It was cheap ($100) so I decided I'd made a Clyde Barrow / John Dillinger style whippet gun for my gangster collection. I had the barrel cut down to 18" and shortened the stock. I suspect it's going to be miserable to shoot, but it makes a cool toy anyways!

Before:
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After:
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Beautiful. Any happy Canada Day!

Thanks! Spent it on crown land with some army buddies and several firearms.