Well, August 2016 has been my best collecting months in years!
I picked up two pretty great rifles, neither of which were cheap (especially after sinking several thousand dollars into the back yard) but both were too good to pass up.
The top one is a Finnish Mosin-Nagant M/39, made by VKT in 1942. This came out of a recent import into Canada, which was actually the pick of the litter from the initial US import in the late 80s, which the owner sat on waiting for the prices to rise. And rise they have! It's hard to believe that I paid almost twice what I did for my last (post-WW2) M/39, but this was still lower than what they'd been selling for between collectors recently and came with the original sling and arsenal hang tag. Beautiful condition with all original WW2 parts and finish (most of these have postwar replacement stocks), this a prime example of the best of the Mosin-Nagants and a real WW2 vet.
The bottom one is even more special, a very nice Hungarian Mannlicher 43M in 8mm Mauser. I've been looking for a WW2 Hungarian Mannlicher for about 14 years, and only ever seen one "in the flesh" behind glass in a museum in the States. So when came up for auction I was pretty much prepared to bid my credit card limit! I ended up doing pretty well at $625, and its much nicer than I'd feared based on the low-res auction house pictures.
The 43M is actually the last in the series of rifles that started with the 35M, which was quite similar but was in 8 x 56mm and used a Mannlicher-style magazine. Hungary was a German ally and built for them the G98/40 (to supplement Kar 98K production), which was basically the 35M in 8mm Mauser with a Mauser style magazine and German style sling and bayonet fittings. After that production run was finished the Hungarians decided it made more sense to share ammunition with their allies and came out with the 43M, which was basically a G98/40 with Hungarian style sling and bayonet fittings. Given that Mannlicher didn't actually design the "Mannlicher" turnbolt (interesting story but its really a modified Gew 88 action) and it has a Mauser magazine, calling it a Mannlicher seems kind of questionable, but its the common term! Mine was built in mid-late 1944 based on the serial number, shortly before or even during the Soviet invasion. There are reports of these going straight from the factory to the front lines during the siege of Budapest.
Best part of both these guns, when I mentioned them to my girlfriend her immediate response was "Cool, you should buy that!", even after we spent all that money on the house. Best. Girlfriend. Ever.