Price Check - A Couple Argentine Mausers

[McQ]

I'm in need of approximate values on a couple of argentine mausers I found for sale locally. All rifles are in very good condition.

1. 1909 Rifle DWM Made in Berlin. All numbers match including stock. This rifle still has the Argentine Crest on the receiver.

2. 1909 Mountain Carbine DWM Made in Berlin. All numbers match except stock. Still has Argentine Crest on receiver.

3. 1909 Cavalry Carbine Made in Argentina. All matching metal, not sure about stock. Still has Argentine Crest on receiver.

4. 1891 Engineers Carbine Leowe(sp?) Made in Berlin. All matching metal, not sure of stock. Still has Argentine Crest on receiver.

I'd like to find a ballpark price on each of these. I tried looking at the auction sites, but these aren't very common so I couldn't find much. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[dfariswheel]

This will be "ball park":

1. 1909 Argentine made by DWM. Probably the finest military bolt rifle ever made.
The ONLY military rifle to have both commercial features of both the hinged floor plate and the pear-shaped bolt knob, so custom builders hunt for these in good shape for use as custom rifles.
In 90% condition--$250.00 to $300.

2. 1909 Argentine Mountain Carbine by DWM. One of the rarest of the Argentine rifles.
$275. to $300. Many people will pay more.

3. 1909 Cavalry Carbine.
$225 to $250. Again, many people will pay more.

4. 1891 carbine.
I have no numbers for an Engineer's carbine, but a cavalry carbine is:
$250 to $300.

Again, in all cases people will pay more due to the lack of available rifles on the market.

 

[pete f]

Many consider the Argentine 09 to be the absolute best made military action EVER. There are some that will pay triple dfaris's prices
If they are at all in decent shape I would go to 500 per example

 

[McQ]

Thanks for the quick replies! The guy also has two 1909 bayonets, Solingen, both retain the argentine crest. One has matching serial numbers on blade and scabbard. Other one has mismatched numbers. What would an approximate value be for the bayonets?

 

[Gordon]

$100 for the bayonet matching. $75 not.
If you have-to/can buy just one get the 1909 Mountain carbine with a matching bayonet. I'd offer $300cash for BOTH and maybe go as high as $400 if very nice.

 

[McQ]

Just for my own info, how much is the value changed by the Argentine Crest being intact? Thanks again for the help guys

 

[dfariswheel]

Any Mauser with the crest removed has less value to a collector.
It usually doesn't matter to a custom builder, since he'll remove the crest anyway.

Argentina went through a period where they removed all crests.
They were selling off their surplus rifles, when during a war between two Central American countries broke out.

One country demanded to know how it was that Argentine military rifles were turning up in the hands of the other country.

At that point, Argentina began removing all crests to avoid accusations of arming belligerence.

Later on, Argentina stopped removing crests and again sold rifles as-is.

The fact that your rifles have intact crests enhances the value.

The DWM made Argentine 1909 is almost certainly the finest quality Mauser ever built.

In a 1980's Guns & Ammo Annual, there was an article about why custom rifle builder favored the Mauser 98 action.
The author said that to re-make the 1909 to the same standard would cost $3000.
This was in 1980's dollars.

The 1909 is as well blued INSIDE as most pistols currently made are OUTSIDE.
The quality of metal polishing and workmanship is just fantastic.

And, as I said above, the 1909 is the only military Mauser that was ever made with commercial features like the pear-shaped bolt knob, and the commercial hinged floor plate assembly.

The 1909 DWM is one of the very few mechanical devices ever made that CANNOT be improved in any way.
Anything that can be changed will only make the rifle cheaper to make.

Like the 1908 Brazilian DWM Mauser, virtually every piece has a matching serial number.

 

[Cosmoline]

Those are good candidates for gunbroker or another auction site, but I'd set reserves plenty high. The days when you could grab a 90% '09 Argie for $250 to $300 went away with my size 36 jeans. You'd be very lucky to find one for those prices. You could get closer to $600 to $700 for those carbines in particular, assuming they are genuine.