Interesting Mosin Find

So this one comes with a bit of a story. My father and I recently decided to work on a bolt-action rifle together, for fun and to help me with my goal of a gunsmith's certificate after college. We ended up buying a Mosin Nagant M91 barreled receiver, and got a bit more than we bargained for. While it's definitely valuable in its own right, as an 1897 dated Mosin, it turns out that it still has the pre-1908, or pre-Konovalov for you collectors, rear sight. Apparently this is quite rare and valuable, to the point where a fellow mentioned to me that he's seen less than a dozen online and only ever one in person, despite working with quite a few. So, I do believe I stumbled across quite the project. Pretty good for $35, eh?
Izhevsk M91, dated 1897, pre-1908 rear sight
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I'm a Mosin virgin, but it sound like you found a good one.

Dilly... Dilly!

great find! Mosins have a ton of history and are/were affordable.

About 13 years ago I picked up a Mosin and while searching the web for information, I found a gunsmith in Montana who specialized in them. His wife was Russian and he really knew his stuff about Russian guns. He would answer questions in great detail and was glad to share the joy of owning with anyone interested. Then he just kind of disappeared. Wish I knew how to hook you up with him.

There is a Mosin collector's forum: http://russian-mosin-nagant-forum.co...ic.php?t=14349

Not to burst any bubbles but you definitely want to do some research before anointing it a diamond in the rough. It’s also missing just about everything else so that’s a big issue when it comes to true value.

It very well maybe rare, however with over 60 million rifles produced things we are told are rare more often then not are more common then we think.

http://7.62x54r.net Has a huge picture and model/date chart and gunboards has a few very knowledgeable high end collectors one being Martin08. I know he personally has Mosin variants that top $4k on the auction sites and many of his are old barn and yard sale finds.

I have a heavy collection of all things Mosin and have yet to come across any true diamonds that weren’t heavily molested or without having to bid on it.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Cool piece of history/ If you can figure how far an arshin is, you can sight it in.

Well, I've gone and done some more research. I found perhaps 3 or 4 more people besides myself who can claim to have found and bought one with that model rear sight, although the few around are complete and in better condition. Even still, this sight configuration appears to be extremely uncommon. I'm going to see what I can find on the Mosin forum next. If I can find arsenal-matched early parts and the correct stock, this should be worth a very shiny penny. Also, I found myself some arshini-to-yards conversion calculators and plan to average each result together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsole...of_measurement

That rifle is very uncommon with the non-updated rear sights regardless of what it's missing. It isn't nearly as valuable with the missing parts, but I'd bet you'd get some interest on Gunbroker. You won't make thousands, but somebody would probably pay $200+ for it as it sits if you want to make a few bucks and buy something else. If you do find "correct" parts, you should inform buyers that the rifle was a barreled action that you added parts to. Otherwise, it's fraud.