[ East German SKS (Karabiner-S) ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at the Rock Island
Auction Company where we are taking a look at an SKS.
Not just any SKS of course, this is one of the "big three".
Namely the three patterns of SKS that are really a lot harder to find than all of the others.
Those would be North Vietnam, North Korea and East Germany.
This is an East German SKS, and of course the easiest way to spot that
from a distance is the slot cut in the stock for a sling.
At any rate, East Germany started manufacturing AK rifles in 1957,
and they started manufacturing SKS rifles in 1958.
And it's really not entirely clear exactly ... why they bothered to make SKSs.
They would only manufacture them for a couple of years, 1958 until 1960.
And the exact usage seems to be a bit unclear.
They appear to have been used by border guards.
They were definitely used in ceremonial roles,
and you can find photographs of them in that role fairly easily.
But beyond that? Like was this perhaps a hedge in case AK production didn't work?
Well, we don't really know, or at least I don't really know.
So, for the moment let's go ahead and take a closer look at this thing,
and let me show you what the East Germans did a little bit
differently than everybody else on their SKSs.
While this is a unique, and rare, and interesting pattern of SKS,
it is ultimately still an SKS.
So all of its major mechanical functions, parts, features, are identical to
the standard pattern of SKS as manufactured by, what, close to a dozen other countries.
But there are three main differences that we can easily spot on the East German.
The first, as I mentioned earlier, is this sling attachment.
Every other pattern of SKS will have sling swivels on it.
The Germans went and used the same sling attachment method
that they'd been using for quite some time, most notably on
basically everything they made in World War Two.
They went ahead and cut a slot in the stock.
It's interesting that the back sling slot is actually wider than the sling.
But the front attachment, which I'll show you in a minute,
is only as wide as this sling is, so that's why they had to make it narrower.
Anyway there are two major versions, they're both leather.
One of them has the end sort of wrapped up like this,
and then stitched together to make a block that will hold against that slot.
The other is a similar version, but instead it's a separate piece of leather
that is riveted on with a pair of rivets here, again to serve the same function.
The front sling attachment on the gas block here is the narrow one.
And so that's what sets the width of the sling.
The front end of this sling has three little attachment slots,
one of them is under there.
... This is a legitimate East German sling,
which is probably almost as hard to find as the rifle itself.
So that's why I wanted to show you guys the detail on that.
Sorry, four different adjustment points.
So you can tighten the sling up pretty nice, or you can loosen it up like this one is.
Sticking with the back end of the rifle for a moment.
There is no trap in the buttstock of the East German SKS.
So typically you'll have a compartment in here with a little spring-loaded door
that contains a cleaning kit.
The East Germans did not do that, which is almost a little bit odd for Germans.
That kind of ... points to this being maybe more of a drill rifle,
a parade rifle, perhaps a training rifle.
Something like that, where ... having the cleaning kit in the gun isn't strictly necessary.
And similarly, the third really distinctive element of the East German SKS
is that it doesn't have a cleaning rod.
Again, on pretty much every other pattern you'll have a hole here in the front cap,
and you'll have a cleaning rod running through here
through a hole in the bayonet lug mount.
There is none here. And you'd have a retaining cap.
So ... again the East Germans, just like they left out the cleaning kit,
they also left out the cleaning rod.
Again suggests maybe this was ... not intended for front-line combat.
But of course the guns ended up going to Vietnam where they certainly were used in that way.
Now taking a look at the markings on here, there are a couple of things we can point out.
The first is, going from left to right, there are two different versions of this stamp.
They both are marked "MfNV", which is an abbreviation in German
for Ministry for National Defence.
And then they will be over one of two different markings, either a "1a" like this,
in which case the whole thing is surrounded by a series of little stippled dots.
Or over a "20z", 2-0-z, it's unclear to me exactly what ... the 1a and the 20z indicate.
Perhaps two different production facilities, but I'm not going to guarantee that.
There's a "K96" stamp in a square, which I believe is a proof or inspection mark.
And then we have a serial number here, the first two digits are the year of production.
So I have yet to see evidence of a 1958 one,
although I have it on fairly good authority that these were produced starting in '58.
The ones I've seen have all been 59 and 60.
And then there will be a single letter prefix, and a four digit serial number.
Now interestingly with these letter prefixes, they don't use all of them.
And the thing that this brings to mind is actually the Czech vz. 52 pistols,
where they deliberately tried to inflate the number of guns it looked like they were making
by using a confusing serial number scheme.
With the East German SKSs, based on some other folks online doing serial number surveys,
the prefixes that have shown up are actually just A, E, F, L, N, and U.
So only six letters out of the alphabet actually being used.
So how many of these did they actually make?
I have no idea, that serial number survey database is less than 20 rifles total.
That is pretty much it for markings on these guns.
You will find the serial numbers on several other parts, including top of the bolt.
We also have a little proof mark there.
I should mention, these were manufactured at the Ernst Thälmann works.
Which is a factory complex in Suhl that was formerly Simson,
and after that it was BSW, it then got conglomerated into Gusloffwerke.
And under the East Germans it was renamed after a communist martyr, Ernst Thälmann.
And that's where they produced the SKSs.
Serial number on the back of the receiver cover,
on the ... left side of the stock,
on the trigger guard,
and also the magazine,
on the underside of the gas tube,
and in this case, electro-pencilled on the bolt itself, right down there.
I believe that is all of them.
Well, if you manage to find an East German SKS,
it probably will not be in as nice a condition as this one.
Most of the examples that we have here in the US are Vietnam War bringbacks.
We don't know exactly what happened to East Germany's SKSs,
which isn't made easier to figure out
by not knowing how many of them there were in the first place.
But for sure, some of them were sent to Vietnam as military aid,
along with a bunch of other patterns of SKS.
So there were a few that were captured there and brought back to the US,
and that's the most typical path.
And when you find a gun that is a Vietnam captured ... trophy or souvenir rifle,
usually they're in kind of rough condition.
So finding an East German SKS like this one
that is in such excellent condition is really quite unusual, and pretty cool to see.
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
If you would like to place a bid on this thing yourself,
if you'd like to add it to your own personal collection,
take a look at the description text below, you'll find a link there to ForgottenWeapons.com.
From there you can link over to Rock Island's catalogue page on this rifle.
They will be selling it at the very end of November/early December of 2018.
And their catalogue page has all of their pictures, their description, their price estimate,
all that sort of stuff that you might be interested in seeing.
Thanks for watching.