No further word on the mark shown above but I did find another one not often seen.
The back story... Italy fared poorly in the bitter fighting along the Isonzo River in World War One. Let's call a spade a spade... they got their butts handed to them by the Austrians. In the process, Austria 'acquired' many thousand Carcano rifles.
Most collectors have seen the AZF ( Artillerie Zeugs Fabrik) mark appplied by armorers to the captured rifles. There was another mark applied to some - but not all - of the rifles. Here we see "Jt U Gr".
Which is for "Italien und Greiche". As closely as I can recall - I do not pretend to speak German. The letter that appears to be a J is actually a stylized I as used in Germany & Austria. Again, I know very little of the German language, but that's the basic story. Bruce knows about that & may jump in to clarify things.
Just Prior to WW1, Greece ordered a large quantity of rifles from Steyr and millions of rounds of 6.5 Greek Mannlicher ammo. War broke out, and the ammo not already shipped was siezed for possible use by the Austrian army.
It was a simple matter to shove a reamer into the receiver and change 6.5x52 Carcano rifles into 6.5x54 Greek Mannlicher. The mark indicates both calibers could be used interchangably. Some people say 'no worries - blast away with a happy heart'...with either caliber in the same rifle. I'm not so sure. I leave everyone to form their own opinion that way. I'm skurred vintage ammo would head separate. Maybe not modern brass, but I am very attached to my neck and do not like to stick it out.
Which is a long winded way of leading up to: this mark is very often overlooked and not understood when seen. If the stock matches the rest of the rifle, the mark does add to the value and further shows it is an historical artifact.
Something else of interest to the die hard collector. Ren
zAustria.jpg [ 67.97 KiB | Viewed 31593 times ]
SW
)
...similar for the year stamp on the stock-compare it to the marks above it....
SW