Found a Krag in cosmoline?

[Baltimore Ed]

Troopers, Sorry that I?ve been away for so long. But in my absence I managed to go on a road trip to Md to attend the annual Baltimore Antique Arms Show in March. Haven?t been able to get to one in years. I also figured that it would be a good place to sell my moulds so I carried them. They only allow pre 1898 handguns but up to WW2 rifles are ok. There were a lot of muzzle loaders, Civil War weapons, Krags, Springfields, Garands, Carbines, Winchester and Marlin lever rifles with all the belts, swords, uniforms and bayonets you could want. I saw a .45 Savage auto, a .45 Luger, a beautiful display of minty ?03 Springfields too. But about 2/3 of the way through I found 3 Krag rifles on a table ?priced to sell? as the dealer said. Two were clean but had sanded stocks, the third was gunked up with what I later discovered was cosmoline. The only semi clean spot was the cartouche, the stock was sticky and the bolt would barely move. I moved on and made a mould sale but when I returned from my truck I went back, it was still there, I dickered with the guy and he dropped 45.00 off so I bought it. After a lot of cleaning it turned out to be an 1896 rifle [it was labeled 1898 but you couldn?t see the date for the gunk] in exceptional shape. Btw, I sold 510.00 worth of moulds and only paid 650.00 for my Krag. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn covered in cosmoline once in a while.

[Baltimore Ed]

Here?s another couple of views. Under the gunk the steel was perfect. It even had a 3 pc cleaning rod and nickeled oiler in the stock! I had never seen one with the blue extractor before. The 64 thousand dollar question is why was it still in cosmoline?

[Abilene]

Heck of a find!

[RattlesnakeJack]

 

What an absolute beauty! 

[Major 2]

" Even a blind bloody lucky, drop-dead brilliant squirrel finds an acorn once in a while. "   

DAMMMMMMMMMMMMMM !

[Crow Choker]

Nice find and rifle. Good pictures too, looks to be in top shape. Is the bore as nice as the rest of the rifle? Finding it in cosmoline reminds me of spring of '65 when a friend and I went to a nearby large city to buy new fishing rods and reels. The hardware store had three cut off metal 50 gallon drums all full of 03 Springfields, Brit Enfields, and German K98k Mausers all covered with dark yellow grease. We were looking at them, not knowing what we were really looking at except knowing they were military rifles used in WW2. A older gent told us what we were looking at and advised we should buy some of them as they would be worth a lot in years down the road. To a couple of sixteen years old the price of $15-20 each was pretty pricey. We passed- -wish now I hadn't. Had that cosmoline all over us, shirts, pants, the saleman at the store had to give us some rags to clean our hands off so we could buy the fishing gear. Still have that Shakespere rod and reel out in the shop. Maybe it's worth something.

[Jake C]

Now THAT is a beautiful find. I can't get over how good everything on that Krag looks. I'm incredibly jealous of you and very happy for you! 

[Silver Creek Slim]

WOW! Congrats!

Slim

[Pitspitr]

Wow, double Wow, and WOW some more.
I thought mine was nice when I bought it, but it wasn't THAT nice and I gave twice that! (course I paid for it in Cabela's bucks)