Help please to translate chinese model 1907 rifle characters

[Guest cruffler john]

I am an advanced gun collector and recently aquired a Chinese model 1907 Mauser rifle. Found this wonderful Chinese Language forum and hope someone may be able to translate the Chinese Characters for me. All I do know is that the double diamond on the top of the action is a marking for the KungHsien Arsenal and would be where the rifle was made. The rifle is in 8mm caliber so was rebarreled during WWI as the original caliber would have been 6.5mm. I am providing two links. The first is a set of pictures taken at several angles of the rifle's crest or top of action and is covered with writing. The second url is to a picture of a branding on the stock. Because I do not know up from down, it has a picture taken from both sides. They are very large jpgs and may take a long time to load. Because of the condition of the markings I thought it necessary for them to be that big to be read. I can provide a smaller picture if need be. Any help is greatly appreciated.

http://www.fototime.com/0966BF55A41B32F/standard.jpg
http://www.fototime.com/99D9F590534A045/standard.jpg
Thank you,
John

[roddy]

Now that's an interesting question. I tried loading the pictures, but they're WAY too slow on dial-up, you'll need to wait for someone on broadband (or at least someone who's already had lunch) I think. The first few inches look like a date - I can see the character for month.

Roddy

[Guest cruffler john]

Was already working on a picture solution for slower connections. Here are the same pictures reduced so that most anyone should be able to see them.

Thank you,

John

http://www.fototime.com/0966BF55A41B32F/standard.jpg

http://www.fototime.com/99D9F590534A045/standard.jpg

[Tsunku]

It's a little hard to make out because its so small, but I see a date, then the characters 造, something,工, 兵, something. The first one is something like "build" or "make" and 工兵 ... well, the dictionary says that means military engineer. 兵 is soldier, and 工 is not so much of a word on its own, it's used more in compounts referring to worker-related things mostly. It seems it's probably referring to when and where the gun was designed. I can't see any more than that clearly though.

[Guest cruffler john]

Thank you, If you have a fast connection, you can make out much more of the markings from the picture links in the initial post. They are so large you can even see the pores in the metal.

John

[niubi]

民國廿一 十一月 November of the 21st year of the Republic

XX兵工厰造 Made at (two unreadable characters) Munitions Factory

[Guest cruffler john]

21st year would be? 1932, Correct?

John

[niubi]

perhaps 1933

[roddy]

Has anybody looked at the second picture? I can make out 民兵 - 'People's Soldier / Army?' but the other two characters aren't clear enough for me to make out. Maybe a 奇 or a 南 on the left?

Made at (two unreadable characters) Munitions Factory

the double diamond on the top of the action is a marking for the KungHsien Arsenal

Guess the unreadable characters might be KungHsien, which a Google search identifies as Gongxian in Henan

Roddy

[niubi]

actually i also thought the character on the left could be 南. the boxy nature of the character on the right made me think at first that it was 國, but now that i look at it again, it might actually be 河. and thus we might say it reads as Republican Army, Henan.

[roddy]

I think to get much further than this we're going to need a better quality image - any chance of this? Take a rubbing or something?

I tried changing the photos to negative images with Photoshop - I saw this done with the Turin Shroud once, to make it clearer. Didn't work though . . .

Roddy

[pazu]

I tried to use PHotoshop to make the images sharper, (by changing the contrast).

I saw the one pic with 南門民兵 but the 門 character is written as the simplified form as 门 . The character 门 may not be regarded as the simplified form at the time of Kuomintang reign, but it may be a kind of 草書 or what.

I don't think it's the 國 character because I don't see anything inside the character, the inside is just flat. And Nanguo doesn't mean anything meaningful to me in terms of military arrangement.

南門 means the South Gate, which may mean that this weapon was used by the army unit at the South Gate.

[Guest Luocheng]

Hi Everyone,

This is a very interesting post. What do you all think of the hand-etched character at the bottom? I think that it says that this gun has claimed the lives of four victims! On the right is the character for kill (sha) and on the left, the running tally of victims. I know that the character for kill looks to be in a simplified version and that simplified characters were not officially adopted until much later in history, but in fact, simplified characters were taken from those simplified variants commonly used by Chinese over many years. I would like to hear what others think. Perhaps, this might be an interesting lead to follow. Just tossing in my brick...

Regards,

New member, Luocheng

[Guest cruffler john]

Thank you everyone for looking at this for me. Thank you Luocheng for that chilling brick you just tossed in. If only this rifle could talk....

You mention that the character for kill is a simplified version adopted later in history. When did these changes take place. Consider that it is clear this marking was added later as it does not show as much wear as the other characters. Though the rifle was made in 1933, it could have been used in conflicts both internal in China and external with the Japanese up until 1949. Too, it is known that some in the Peoples Liberation Army were still armed with older Mauser rifles at the Start of the Korean War in 1950. It is possible this rifle was used in any Chinese conflict from 1933 to the end of the Korean War so it is possible the kill marking could have been added anytime over a 20 year period. Please keep looking at the characters for me guys and let me know if you figure out anything new. I will clean the grease off the rifle and see if I can get any better pictures or rubbings to post. Will also get a picture up of the entire rifle so you can see what you are helping me with.

Thanks so much,

John from Texas

[Guest cruffler john]

A friend has another rifle that was found with my rifle. His stock branding is almost identical to mine but much clearer. In this picture, the left, top, and right character is identical to the one on my rifle. Only the bottom one is different. Translating his may be the key to translating mine.

His rifle's Ideograph.

http://www.fototime.com/inv/AC1D37E3EF51196

And my rifles Ideograph again.

http://www.fototime.com/99D9F590534A045/standard.jpg

Again thanks for the help with this guys.

John

[niubi]

yo! what do i win?! i was right. it is does does say Republican Army, Henan (province)! the pic of your friend's rifle confirmed what i had guessed.

[Guest cruffler john]

Excellent!

What about the character at the bottom center of my stock branding. I think it is different than the one in the same place on my friends rifle. Would there be a difference in part of the translation between the two brandings. Or perhaps they are the same, but just a different size.

Also, in everyones replys, please consider I know absolutely nothing about the Chinese Language and in fact seeing your posts via an English version, I see your referenced characters as only 0s on my Computer.

Thank you,

John

[niubi]

he + nan = henan province

min + bing = republican army

they are the same character, the bottom half of the character on your friend's rifle is worn.

[Guest cruffler john]

Thank you niubi. That is great!

Ok, between this forum and a couple of Chinese persons on a Mauser rifle forum it looks like this is about figured out.

First Line:

"November of the 21st year of the Republic" or "Chinese Republic 21st year 11th month"

That date commences from the Chinese Revolution, 1911. So my rifle was made in 1932.

Second Line:

"Made at KungHsien Munitions Factory" or "Kung Hsien Military Factory Made". I was also told that "Military Factory" might also have been meant to be "Arsenal" at that time.

I already knew from another resource that the double diamond at the very top was a marking for the Kung Hsien factory.

And the Hand Etched Marking:

Believed to be a character for kill (sha) on the right and the running tally of victims (4) on the left. It is as if China was in perpetual war so these markings could have been added at anytime from 1932 to 1950.

Stock Branding or Ideograph:

Republican Army, Henan Province. On the other forum I was told "Min Bing" was intended to mean "People's Soldier" and is usually translated as "Militia".

I was also told that there are at least two Countys named Henan. So it may be for Henan Province or Henan County, depend on how the Chinese government organized the Republican Army or Militia at that time.

Thank you so much guys for helping me with this. If you have any opinions on the different translation ideas of the stock branding, I would love to here it.

On the alleged kill marking, I have a picture here from the other rifle of the same (sha), but with markings on the left different than mine. Might be the piece of that puzzle that tell us for sure that Luocheng was correct in that translation. Is it a character or a different tally of victims (5)?

Thank you,

John

[Guest Luocheng]

Hi, well, it was an interesting theory and from the first picture, it looked l might be on to something, but the very clear picture of your friend's gun marking seems to be nothing more than the character for 'practice' (albeit missing part of one stroke). Then again, there are so many characters our there, it is possibly something else. So apologies, if I have raised a red herring.