Japan M1 garand

[licorice1207 0]

Hi, I know it does not belong here but I do not belong to the Garand site and know that Bruce C. looks here . What is a Japanese Garand worth and how do I tell if it is real I have a chance to buy one, location is on LI< Ny.

Thank you

Tony

[Bruce Canfield 0]

Tony,

I would suggest contacting Tony Pucci at Orion 7 Enterprises. I believe he owns (or owned) one of these rifles. They typically sell for "big bucks," so you want to be careful. As far as a price goes, it would be whatever a buyer and seller could agree on.

[Alasdair MacDonald 0]

licorice1207, If my memory serves me correctly, I believe only 7 known prototypes of this rifle were ever produced. One of them is in the West Point Museum. About 20 years ago I actually held one at the Reno gun show. I asked the owner if I could pick it up for examination and he said yes as he said I was the only person at the show who knew what it was. Although crude metal work, it was in 7.7 mm cal. and the magazine protruded past the bottom of the rifle about an inch. The owner said that was because it held 10 rounds instead of the usual eight. At that time the asking price was $20,000.00. Since I was only a frugal police sergeant it was way out of my pocketbook range. As I recall, the barrel also extended past the gas tube a little more than the Garand. They are extremely rare and bring high prices. Caveat emptor(let the buyer be ware) Make sure it is not a fake. Hope this helps, cordially Alasdair.

[licorice1207 0]

Thank you all, you described it exactealy. I will find out asking price . Lord knows if it is that much I cant come close to it.

Tony

[ArtR 0]

Following link may be interesting

SARCO WEB PAGE

[Joseph Scott 0]

At the Tulsa show I met a Japanese (born in Japan) collector and he told me the original manufacturing drawings are available. They were found in files that the US sent back to Japan at some time. He is arranging to get copies and I will try to buy a set from him. Sometimes in the 1980's, one of the rifles sold for $6000. Johnson's were less than $800 at the time, so factor prices to today. I know most of the collectors in the Banzai collectors group and to best of my knowledge, no one owned such. I know Japan investigated various self-loading rifles through-out the years but never adopted one. I am sure they had some captured Johnson's and wonder why they didn't copy them instead. Maybe they didn't get to the right IJA technical people. Losing a war is complex. I wonder what history will say about US wars after 1945?

[licorice1207 0]

Hi, talked to owner today rifle is for sale and it is a war bring back correct 7.7 cal and all I will be inspecting it this week. I cant afford it so it is for sale. If any one needs to talk to me cell is 516 315 1248 days 5:00AM to 6:30 PM.

Tony

[Alasdair MacDonald 0]

ArtR, after seeing your photos of the receiver of one of these rifles, I was reminded of the fact that there is a clip slot cut in the top front area of the receiver to accept a five round stripper clip. Two fives would load this puppy up and ready to fire. This is important because that means no en bloc clip or "ping" at the end. I can just see them engineering this during the war. "Must get rid of honorable "ping", uncle Ito found that out the hard way on Guadalcanal!" "Sumimasen", (I am sorry) Cordially, Alasdair, currently studying Japanese.

[Bob Lamoreaux 0]

With all due respect, I doubt that there were any JSARs or JLMGs captured by the Japanese during the late great dispute. I suspect that only a few made it to the NEI before the fall of that Dutch colony and the troops armed with these were evacuated to Australia. Johnsons in the hands of the Dutch were used either by the Navy or were in the hands of Dutch troops in the Americas (Surinam, Curacao, and [possibly] Aruba). The last Johnson rifles and lmgs used by the USMC saw action on Bougainville in the Northern Solomons. While some J-guns may have been lost in combat, I kind of doubt that they were recovered and sent to Japan for "reverse engineering". Another thought is the amenability of J-guns to be produced by some of the crude methods used by the Japanese. While the Johnson was designed to be fabricated by a number of "small" subcontractors with limited tooling, they apparently do require some interesting machining techniques that might not have been common in Japan.

[licorice1207 0]

Hi, gun is for sale asking is 30,000.

thank you

Tony