Blood Stain on Military Rifle Help
- Thread starter pcvando
- Start date
Brutus
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
On a similar note, I've read of an M1 Garand sold in the USA, that came back from the Korean Peninsula with bits of human blood and scalp stuck underneath the metal butt plate too.
Good for you for having it tested. Not sure how I feel about it being human blood but being a battlefield pick up certainly makes it possible and your rifle proves it.
Now, you want to sell that rifle. Plenty bad JOU JOU there. Certainly unlucky for the fellow that bled all over it.
The soft wood around the blood isn't surprising at all.
A good but morbid find for you. The value on that rifle with provenance that the blood is indeed human will quadruple its value in some circles.
I like that you did so much research. Good for you.
Yup. Had mine done when there was a sale ($99USD) a couple of years ago. My gf is a geneticist so she can interpret the data. However, I'm not sure just how detailed their analysis is; apparently they don't have the latest chips in their system. Really all they can tell you is where your genetic background comes from, geographically-speaking, as well as pointing out some markers for the more common diseases. And you'll get lots of "You have a relative in Missouri" e-mails, with offers to connect with them. Whether they can provide detailed enough analysis to connect a blood stain to a specific family in Europe I don't know, but opefully the OP's friend will have enough knowledge to advise him.
And then what do you tell the relatives? "Lieber Herr (oder Frau) X: A DNA test for blood found on a Mauser rifle I acquired indicates that your grandfather may have been carrying it when he was killed." (Wie sagt man, "Have a nice day" auf Deutsch?)
Stuart
It would be nice to invite them over and let the family handle an old relic which their grandfather, great uncle or whatever family member fought the war with. might make for a good documentary if there really is a story behind it.
I have traced three guns to their original owners - two from names engraved on the receiver, and one from a note concealed in the buttstock. The original owners were dead (one had died only three weeks previously), but I was able to contact one son and one nephew still living in Ontario, and one son (85 years old) living in Egypt. A very satisfying bit of research, and 100% assurance of provenance, but none of them were interested enough to even want pics.
I would not spend much on a test from which you will not be able to draw solid conclusions, but it might be worth it to you. Dozens of people will have handled it, and it might have been Bob the crating specialist's bothersome bloody nose that is the source. Bob, the guy with Austrian heritage who has never been near Europe. IMO you'd spend money you'd never recover, but the chase might be worth it to YOU.
I probably would have cleaned the gun and not said a word about it, but perhaps I'm too pragmatic at times.
I would not spend much on a test from which you will not be able to draw solid conclusions, but it might be worth it to you. Dozens of people will have handled it, and it might have been Bob the crating specialist's bothersome bloody nose that is the source. Bob, the guy with Austrian heritage who has never been near Europe. IMO you'd spend money you'd never recover, but the chase might be worth it to YOU.
I probably would have cleaned the gun and not said a word about it, but perhaps I'm too pragmatic at times.
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^ really cool that you traced another gun. I did the same with my K31, using the tag under the butt plate, and found the guy. He is still alive. Having said that, there was not much interest on his part as he served in the 1950's and he was only in the army for 11 months as a mandatory service for Switzerland.
- Location
- Somewhere on the Hudson Bay Coast
The bright side of the story is that if the blood was deposited on the rifle as described, and it dates to the time of the Second World War, in all likelihood it belonged to the guy who carried it, rather than to one of his victims. The fact that the blood wasn't cleaned off, suggests that the individual who carried it, had no further need of it. Had he continued to use the rifle, it would have been cleaned.
It won't matter, from a forensic standpoint, if you "clean" it or not. It will still be detectable with Bluestar and likely with Luminol and Fluorescein.
Current methods of age testing blood are virtually impossible without prior known historical data. For example you knew a person was killed and bled on a wood floor 60 years ago. Bluestar could show the blood pool/splatter, etc and validate YOUR date however a sample from the boards and dated would be very inaccurate in determining any date.
Yep... Smells like a dead Nazi to me. That's the smell of victory. I may be biased because I've had relatives in their concentration camps, even though they lived to tell the tale.
As did I. However they were very lucky. Thankfully still with us to tell the stories.
It most likely occurred during ww2 because of the ammo that came with it. The ammo had supposedly stayed with the rifle. The ammo is all Nazi marked. 1939 ammo, all the rounds are marked with the German eagle.
I did not notice the stain until I came home.
I did not notice the stain until I came home.
I would keep it as it is... Similar story in below video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEK8iHPWXrs
