Video – unboxing an StG44 after 70 years

So..you’re remodeling your house, pull the roof apart, and find a gun-shaped object wrapped in cloth. Hmm. Grab some video of the grand unveiling and…it’s an StG44.


I would guess the story is either someone during the war decided to keep it to play partisan, or someone came into it at the end of the war and decided to keep it for a future rainy day, or, less likely, some German soldier hid it with the hope of returning for it. My money is on the second scenario.

Finding old guns in odd places isn’t limited to Europe. Here in Montana ‘relics’ are a genuine category of gun at gun shows. Someone plows a field and a rusted, barely-recognizable Sharps is unearthed…or someone finds an old shotgun stuffed in a corner of a barn…or when Grampa kicks the bucket at 97 the family finds an old .41 Remington in his dresser. Been there, done that.

The more notable cases are things like the guy who found a Thomspon gun hidden the wall of his Chicago home. Or the small-town library that finds a WW1 bring-back Maxim in their attic that used to be used for Veterans Day parades.

So..if you were going to stuff something in between the joists for some future date, what would it be?

I think that, like many folks, I’d probably breakdown an AR, wrap it up with a handful of magazines, and tuck it away with a similarly packaged Glock.

Tell you what, though…I find an StG in my attic, ain’t nobody finding out about it.

 

17 thoughts on “Video – unboxing an StG44 after 70 years

  1. I think what you put back depends on the concept of use.

    Operational Cache- AR/AK with mags/ ammo/ kit/ ancillary stuff. Concealable pistol with same. Boots, some clothes, small backpack.

    If I was making a survival Cache it would be more food gathering related, like a .22 pistol and a shotgun.

    Have you seen this article? https://www.google.com/amp/s/mountainguerrilla.wordpress.com/2012/09/08/resistance-s4-the-logistics-of-successful-re-supply-cache-planning/amp/

  2. I’m way more boring than that.

    An FR-8 bolt rifle, a pair 200 round 7.62NATO battle packs, 2 boxes of SP .308 Win. ammunition and a .22 RF bolt rifle (probably a CZ 452 Scout ) along with a brick of ammunition would be the rifles.

    Pistols – hard to say, but it would probably be something that fits 9mm, along with one of the small hide-outs that chambers the same round.

    • Its worth nothing. It cant be brought into the US civilian market legally. In Poland, it’s value is also probably zero since they aren’t allowed to have it either.

      • Priceless then.
        It’s a good job it was not found in the UK or the building owner and who ever found it would be looking at five years.
        To tell you how bad it is in the UK look up former soldier Paul Clarke. He found a sawn off shotgun in the street and handed it to the police (I will say how he did it was a bit odd) and got arrested for possessing the gun. He was found guilty of that offence by a jury – they did find 12 well I better not say. what I think. Because possession of a firearm is a strict liability offence, Clarke’s intent in handing it in was deemed to be irrelevant. He got a 12-month sentence, suspended for one year, more than Lavinia Woodward got for stabbing someone. It was only after the newspapers got on to it that the Judge dropped the five years in prison he said he was going to get.

  3. ‘zackly.

    If I found a Thompson or BAR bring-back in some relatives’ effects, or squirreled away in the attic, the only people I’d tell would be me, myself, and I.

  4. Story reminds me of those damn fools in California who found the old coffee can full of good coins.

    • yeah, that was dumb of them to let that get out. Wonder how much the state got? Would the IRS consider this income and tax them on it?

      • You betcha! CA got ~10-13%, and the feds ~40%. I think the problem was they couldn’t figure out how to market extremely rare objects on the sly. The clandestine hit might have been as bad as what the taxes were, so might as well be above board. Some of those coins were so rare, an auction was the only way to market them with provenance, and selling them outside the US wouldn’t bring real money.

        I’m still unsure if that CA tax is an additional fee for over $1M/year income, or the top rate. I suspect it may be a fee, since CA lost 1/3 of those (5000 left the state!) who got hit with it when it first got passed, back in the dot-com days.

  5. Had a kid walk into the Springfield (Big E) gun show with an attic fresh G.43.

    When I asked him about it he said he found two guns and pulled out a cell phone pic of him with the G.43 and an Stg44.

    ATFE plat? Maybe, but I’ve seen some spectacular stuff turn up in the damndest places.

    5 miles from, my house there’s a woman who lets her kids play with an old family gun: martially marked Henry.

  6. I found a Hungarian bottom fold AKS once. Don’t know if someone stashed it, set it down and forgot about it (gotta love high grade medical marijuana!) or got rid of it for nefarious reasons. Still have it and it was practically brand new.

    Coming from the simpler/cheaper is sometimes better camp, I would probably cache a Ruger GP100 in SS, 6″ bbl and a good used Remington 700 in .308 with a set of peep sights. Avoid all the semi-auto moving parts being affected by corrosion, if it can go wrong it will go wrong, so I like having less to go wrong.

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