The resurrection and the knife

A nice thing about good little loopholes is that they feature all sorts of easy and mindless blog food at trifling cost, in this case a five-dollar bill.

There is no official relic-condition category called "hideous to the max," but there should be. What else do you call a (probable) M1 bayonet variation -- greatly shrunken -- like this?

The first incorrect impulse is to ID it as some sort of M1 carbine blade. Among other things, the muzzle hole is too big.  So, Garand? Maybe. Also maybe a foreign adaptation of the M1 bayonet for something else. (The key to M1ish identification is the complicated birds-head pommel.) It's 11 inches overall with a 6 1/2 -inch blade.

The other faulty impulse is to curse the Bubba who maimed it beyond any wild dream of restoration: all markings obliterated, lug catch ground off, hilt metal and pommel deeply pitted, and a fuller showing the endeavors of a guy who had a Dreml but shouldn't have. The finishing touch is a set of grips crafted from salvaged orange crate lumber and Elmer's glue.

I'll take a short-odds bet that this one is a dugup and spent a long time under damp earth before someone kicked it up and decided to see if he could turn it into a knife.  So it's a well-motivated resurrection, sort of like Stephen King's risen cat; it didn't walk too well, but it was still  reconizable as a cat-like object.

Actually, it is kind of a porn gun.

But please keep it under your hat. This is being written in the wee hours when my compatriots are sleeping and won't find out somebody snuck back to the loophole for:

Provenance? You demand provenance? I got your provenance right here:

Corporal Styng of the 101st Airborne took it from a particularly thuggish SS Oberstleutnant on the Cotentin Peninsula about sunrise, June 6, 1944. For 11 months it was a comforting presence in his pocket, loaded with 7.65 rounds also liberated from the German supply chain.

Then, in early May on the Elbe, victory won, his artistic side appeared. The battalion armorer made up the grips from the wind screen of a downed Stuka, and S/Sgt. Styng lovingly fitted the photo of the Girl Back Home.  (A more sedate picture of the future Mrs. Styng is under the right grip panel.)

Geeking it out: FN Browning Model 1922, .32ACP, Nazi proofed, made in the captured FN factory in Liege, Belgium, probably in 1941 or '42, although it bears a batch serial number (with a letter suffix), making dating somewhat tricky. The slide is well polished and blued. The number-matched frame shows more hasty manufacturing. Insofar as the Luftwaffe had an official pistol, this was it, but the 1922 was widely carried by Master Race officers of all services.

The 1922 is a stretched version of John M. Browning's , PBUH, Model 1910 which Colt didn't want. So he had it built by the Walloons who showed it to the picky damned Yugoslavs who wanted a longer barrel and greater capacity.

Most guys would probably grade this one at very good, maybe a little better. 85 per cent? I expect it to shoot well enough -- minute-of-Nazi thorax  across a small courtyard. But that's secondary. What it is is foxhole art and the one of the most intimate possible pieces of history.  What is war if it isn't the story of a lonesome warrior, too far from Her?

 

Just maybe some piddly little Sandy deaths

I know a lot of Virginians,  and they don't talk this way. Just the politicians.

"...  no injuries so far and no fatalities of any significance," Governor Bob McDonnell told the electric teevee this morning.

Try it like this, Governor Bob. "No one hurt or killed yet."  You're just not ready for words of two or more syllables.

Other gun show spawn

That's it, the entire result of a couple of aisle-wandering hours up in Windom. Materially it doesn't  justify the fuel cost, So you have to look at it spiritually. Then the laughs and general bs-ing yield a rich profit.

But back to things. The items represent an expenditure of eleven Federal Reserve Cartoons, each humorously labeled one "dollar."

The booklets came at one FRC each, no negotiation involved. The taper crimp die traded for $7.50, a 25 per cent reduction in the ask. That's especially sweet because I've been wanting one against the likelihood that I may need to start rolling  9 mm.

The mink oil is even better, half off the tag price, or $1.50 and NIB.  Did you know that mink oil really comes from minks, usually Chinese ones in today's market? I didn't until I wikied it. Like you, I love it the stuff to soften certain leather  -- slings, dress belts, gloves that got wet, and so forth. (Never holsters.)  But it took the internet to teach me it will make my skin soft, smooth, and radiant.  I think I'll pass. My hide is none of those sexy things, but there are occidental mink all around Camp J, and that makes me fearful. Certainly among the locals there may be a bull mink who fantasizes Asian, and I'll bet a randy mink jumping my face would sting.

Lessee. What else? Oh yeah, the Fort William book was sort of a mistake. I stupidly assumed it was a history of Fort Laramie which began life as Fort William -- named Fort William by Mr. Sublette whose first name was William.  S'okay. After years of studying Rocky Mountain trappers, I need to know more about the Frenchies and their eastern fur trade.

One more thing. I'm diddling with the idea of going back today. If Wehrmacht Browning 1922 and the Remington 760 (another one of those damned things?) are still on the tables, I could re-open negotiations. If that happens, and if my pals find out about it, they will  snicker and smirk and point rude fingers at me and make  stupid cracks about a guy who can't make up his mind. Scroom. I mean, were they clever enough to get half-off on a cask of mink oil?