Nice rifle and i would not hesitate to give him £50 for it but dont like the carpet
I have just uploaded some pictures of an early Webley Mk.1 Rifle, showing the etching in good detail.
This rifle does not belong to me, unfortunately, but was a recent acquisition by a fellow collector on the other side of the pond.
These pictures are published with his permission.
http://mynetimages.com/55bc20f3.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/14bb4c37.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/1074a627.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/8a7e7b89.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/b7834ef3.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/a3e00f75.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/19e4c436.jpg
http://mynetimages.com/af03b12f.jpg
Nice rifle and i would not hesitate to give him £50 for it but dont like the carpet
[B] Yipee ki yay
The background to the pictures is not ideal, but that's how they were sent to me.
I may try and clean them up a bit sometime.
That's a beautiful example.
Out of interest David, do you know roughly what proportion of the total of these early Webley Mk1s have etching still visible like this?
The reason I ask is that Lakey recently estimated that around 5% of the inter-War BSAs had their etching still visible.
Wonderfull "etchings" David & Danny.
Try this depressing calculation for aspiring owners of an etched Mk.1 rifle:
500 etched Mk.1's made: of which perhaps a quarter remain, = 125 rifles. If we take Lakey's (BSA) figure of 5% survival with good etching that leaves 6 rifles available!
Alternatively let us be generous and assume half of all etched Mk.1's have survived (unlikely), ergo 250 rifles, and 10% remain etched, that still is only 25 rifles left in the world.
I reckon about 10 to 15 rifles max is about it, with readable etching?
come on then whats a rifle like this worth ?????
As Chris has said in post #6, not many.
During my recent research on Mk.1's, I got to know of 3 examples across the pond, but Len's is the only one I've managed to get pictures of.
I did ask for pictures of the other two, but this request was met with a stony silence.
I would think there are some in the UK, but, there are some VERY secretive collectors about, so we will probably never know for sure.
Thank you Chris and David.
As with the BSAs, it would be good if someone with the necessary skills could put together a re-etching service for these early Webleys. I saw a pic of a repro prewar BSA etching done by elanmac recently, which was very close to the original.
Thanks again Troubledshooter for providing such fantastic photos
question to all ---------does anyone know of anyone who has the expertise to make or do acid etching or transfers to the correct scale from these pictures???
ATB
paul
Thanks David - something to aspire to ?
And Thanks to Chris for his reality check.
Sam
It would be nice to find one, Sam, but I'm not holding my breath.
I'm still looking for a good .22 version, etched, rolled or otherwise.