Sorry for the crappy cell phone pictures, I'm not staying at home at the moment (renos - ugh), but I just got this new toy and had to share. A very nice Berthier M1890 cavalry carbine from a board member, made at Chatellerault in 1891. It was upgraded to the post-1894 side-mounted sling but still maintaining all the other original features, including the side-mounted cleaning rod channel (missing the rod, unfortunately) and never converted to take a bayonet. Original M1890 Cavalries are rare as the French realised pretty soon after 1914 that La Grande Guerre wasn't going to be a cavalry war. As such, most French cavalry regiments fought dismounted, but retained their carbines in the trenches for fairly obvious reasons. However, most M1890s were converted to a similar configuration to the M1892 artillery carbine as the bayonet was considered useful in the dismounted role.
Interestingly enough, this one DOES have the very rare sheet metal dust cover introduced in WW1 - which to me is a pretty good indicator this thing spent some time in the trenches! These were apparently pretty unpopular and commonly discarded - I can certainly understand, it's held on by the takedown screw and would probably make removing or reinserting the bolt (already kind of a pain with a Lebel or Berthier) even more of a pain. Given that that it still has the clip ejection hole on the bottom of the mag, it probably didn't do much anyways!
It doesn't have any of the wood patches commonly seen on refurbished French arms, which makes me think it was probably sold off or in the colonies by the time the 30s rolled around - probably because it was considered an obsolete pattern. Overall its a great rare, unmolested WW1 carbine and I'm really happy with it!
Interestingly enough, this one DOES have the very rare sheet metal dust cover introduced in WW1 - which to me is a pretty good indicator this thing spent some time in the trenches! These were apparently pretty unpopular and commonly discarded - I can certainly understand, it's held on by the takedown screw and would probably make removing or reinserting the bolt (already kind of a pain with a Lebel or Berthier) even more of a pain. Given that that it still has the clip ejection hole on the bottom of the mag, it probably didn't do much anyways!
It doesn't have any of the wood patches commonly seen on refurbished French arms, which makes me think it was probably sold off or in the colonies by the time the 30s rolled around - probably because it was considered an obsolete pattern. Overall its a great rare, unmolested WW1 carbine and I'm really happy with it!
