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Post by Plain Old Dave on Aug 14, 2015 5:18:31 GMT -5
For a Danish Krag. Have always preferred long rifles, but what should be looked for in an M/89 Krag? What years are easier/harder to find?
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Post by amore2 on Sept 6, 2015 6:34:26 GMT -5
The hardest years to find (in Denmark) are 1916-1918. In these years - during WW1 - Danmark was a neutral country but close neighbor to Germany. The Danes wanted to stay out of the conflict and made all the efforts to make the Military stronger. That included speeding up the production of M1889 rifles.
During that periode there was produced around 33.000 rifles, which is about 25 pct of the total production.
I don't recall the precise production numbers for these years, but from my database it looks like:
1914: 5000 rifles
1915: 10000
1916: 10000
1917: 5000
1918: 3000
Rifles from 1915 are rather common - I have around 60 pieces in the database - but only 18 pcs from 1916 despite the same productionnumbers. Most of the 1916 to 1918 are located in USA.
My theory is, that most of the weapons stolen by the Germans during WWII were from these years. A lot of rifles came to US after the war and perhaps some of them were Danish.
The most common year is proberly 1891, where the production of the new Danish rifle peaked. In 1891 there were produced around 15000 rifles.
Best regards
Niels J.
Denmark
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Post by amore2 on Sept 6, 2015 6:56:57 GMT -5
I forgot to mention, that most of the last years procuction (1941 to 1945) stayed in Denmark after the war. Perhaps they are rather rare in US ?
Best regards
Niels J.
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Post by Plain Old Dave on Sept 6, 2015 8:22:40 GMT -5
Interestingly, a lot of what are seen on US auction sites are WW1 era production. A Google Image Search will show a reasonably wide variety of Danish Krag dates here in the US, but with a goodly number of WW1 dates. It might be that what the Germans impounded contained a lot of WW1 production and that would explain the high occurrence of WW1 dates here. I have never seen a Danish Krag dated after the 1920s in the US, though. It might be that those were hidden during the Occupation and never made it to this country?
Something else: Were the Haerens Torjus rifles wartime only? I don't recall ever having seen any of those dated before or after WW1.
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Post by amore2 on Oct 12, 2015 3:21:56 GMT -5
All Danish Krags are made in the same factory, but the name of the factory has changed over time:
1890 - 1910: Geværfabriken Kjøbenhavn
1910 - 1923: Hærens Tøjhus
1923 - 1932: HR (Hærens Rustkammer)
1932 - 1943: HV (Hærens Våbenarsenal)
1943 - 1945: No name
The productionnumbers between 1919 and 1929/1941 were very low (only 1500-2000 in total) and I have only registrations of guns from 1921 and 1922. In 1929 there were made a serie of receivers - some were used in the 1929 (around 600), but others were stocked until 1940. A lot of the 1940-made carbines were made on 1929-recievers (about 500).
There wasn't made any Danish Krags between 1929 and 1940/41. In 1941 there were produced around 3000 Fodfolkskarabiner (Infantry Carbines) and in 1944-45 around 500 Fodfolkskarabiner for the Danish Coast Police.
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Post by Plain Old Dave on Oct 26, 2015 8:00:42 GMT -5
Interesting information, thanks!
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