Thursday, September 27, 2012

Curator Needed...

When Bobbi and I went to the Indiana World War Memorial, the trip through the museum in the basement was alternately fascinating and frustrating. Every now and again I'd run across some glitch or inaccuracy that activated my OCD like seeing a tee-shirt tag sticking out the collar of the person ahead of me in line at the grocery store: You want to fix it, but there's nothing you can do and it takes all your willpower to keep your hands to yourself.

Here's their display of Central Powers rifles from the Great War:


The top rifle appears to be a WWII-vintage Steyr-manufactured Mauser, given the turned-down bolt handle, wooden top handguard that runs all the way back to the receiver ring, and grasping grooves in the stock. The pistol grip isn't the distinctive Steyr one, so maybe it's not, but whatever it is, it isn't a WWI rifle with that bolt handle and the bolt disassembly disc in the stock. Corrected by Rob in comments: Looking at the position of the trigger guard in relation to the bolt handle, it's almost certainly a Kar 98a...

Note that the stock is "duffle cut", allowing the disassembled barrelled action and stock to fit in a Hoosier GI's dufflebag. I believe that the label should indicate that. Also it should indicate that somebody stuck that barrel band on backwards; the sling swivel's on the wrong side.

The second one down, a Kar 88, and the fourth one down, a Gew 88, might have seen service in the Great War, but the third one down is a Franco-Prussian War-era M62 Dreyse "needle rifle" that was already a wall-hanger long before Mons and the Marne. And it's mislabeled as a Gew 71, to boot.

The bottom one, an Austrian M95 that hasn't been chopped into a stutzen, kinda gave me the wantsies...

Once again, this brings up the phenomenon of "Gell-Mann Amnesia": Every time I looked at an exhibit in an area where I had some personal knowledge or expertise, I saw bunches of little flaws and errors, and yet get away from those areas and the natural tendency was to just accept what I saw as gospel truth... Why should they have been any more accurate with the other stuff?

27 comments:

  1. With your knowledge of military arms you could probably fix a lot of mis-labeling... Perhaps you could offer your services?

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  2. What, no commentary on the bayonet and frog hanging in the corners?

    Your OCD is slipping, if you don't feel the need to point out which rifle gets a point.

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  3. The museum curators don't generally want to know. The Patton Museum in Desert Center has a very nice Krag labled as a Springfield '03.

    I have told them several times. Noone wants to know, or they say "Well, it was made in Springfield."

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  4. I don't know, I think that top rifle could be Karabiner 98a. Did doughboys duffle cut their trophys too?

    Rob

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  5. Rob,

    I didn't even think of that!

    Looking at the position of the trigger guard in relation to the bolt handle, it's almost certainly a Kar 98AZ...

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  6. Well, France IS a long way away from Indiana.

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  7. The bottom one, an Austrian M95 that hasn't been chopped into a stutzen, kinda gave me the wantsies...
    Yeah, me, too. Grand-Dad doubtless carried one against the awful Tedeschi at Monte Cimone, and that fact would make up for all the chiropractic bills if I were to actually shoot the thing.

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  8. The Watervleit Arsenal Museum in NY has a Japanese civil-official saber in their Spanish-American War exhibit. Nobody's perfect.

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  9. In ww one None of the fighting nations could get egnough firearms to issue "standard wepons to all troops. ALL of those rifles ,and more were issue for the AH army.( the US issued Krag rifles to rear echalon troops 'till mid 1918) The K-98a MIGHT have been cut for use buy Stutztruppen(stormtroops) in 1918.It was NOT a common thing but it was done.(US GIs in WW1 didn't have to cut rifles, they were allowed to take them home openly)---- P.S. In ww1 wepon supply was so bad in EVERY army that any and all breach loading rifles were pressed into service. Even needle guns and British 1876&1886 Martinni Enfields(in .303) Ray

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  10. Ray,

    Mauser 71's? Yes.

    Dreyses? No.

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  11. (Incidentally, my sporterized Kar 71 is a bring-back from a WWI doughboy who served in the post-war occupation forces...)

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  12. For the last thirty years I've read that George H. W. Bush flew an SB2C in WWII, but two weeks ago, in two separate museums in San Diego, I saw placards stating that he flew a TBF. Anyone know the true skinny?

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  13. Dreyses YES the were used buy training brigades in BOTH germany and Austria. So were 71s and anything else they could lay hand too. (PHOTOs show german troops training with dreyses as late as 1918) ( Us Army troops were potographed guarding Brookline Navy yard with trapdoor springfields--in 1917!!) There are MILES of film showing WW1 US troops carring captured rifles onto troopships home. Duffle bag cuts ,AND duffle bags(invented in 1943) are strictly WW2. Untill the passage of the NFA in the 1930s US Army troops could bring home any wepon they wanted to. Ray

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  14. Egads, if that stuff gave you a nervous tic, the average British museum would have you shuffling out the door like Rain Man. In one of them, I could only assume that the curators had described the exhibits over the 'phone to, "that SAS guy we met in the pub," and just went with what he said.

    After learning that the MP5K is so named because it fires "9mm Kurtz rounds," I actually lost all motor function in my face for about an hour.

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  15. The only museums I've ever visited where the displays can be trusted are the Museum of the Plains Indians in Browning, MT and The Museum of The Fur Trade, in Chadron, NE. All the others including the USS Constitutution in Boston give me fits.

    Why do the incompetents running these places just make shit up when they obviously don't know? It's like "aunteeke shoppes" where half the stock is labelled "Old".

    Gerry Nygaard

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  16. Ray,

    FFS, speak English, dammit! >:(

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  17. Anonymous said...
    "The museum curators don't generally want to know."

    The Durham Museusm in Omaha is running a "The American Soldier, From the Civil War to the War in Iraq: A Photographic Tribute" ... the curator, one "Cyma Rubin" admitted on a local radio interview that she was a "War Protester" during the Vietnam Era. Effing Typical: Some Leftard has managed to make a Frackin' Career out of the blood sweat and tears of those she spat on 50 years ago. No, she does not want to know. I will not go, for if I run into her, I'm likely to be less than civil, and quite possibly much worse.

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  18. Hahaha! OCD, hell, you are displaying autie tendencies there, Ma'am!


    Noticing tiny details and all that puts you under suspicion. Welcome to the club; we will disclose the secret handshake to you a bit later.

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  19. It's not just the smaller museums. Some years back. the Smithsonian had a mannikin depicting an aircrew man (an ELINT operator, IIRC), with incorrectly assembled parachute harness.

    The staff did not want to hear about it.

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  20. Coupla things. 1) the Gew 88 most certainly DID serve in WWI. My Grandfather (an aircraft mechanic) trained with one in France before going to his unit. We have a GREAT photo of his in dishpan helmet, wrap puttees standing proudly at port arms with said Gew 88.
    Soon's he got away from the training depple the wrap puttes gave way to leather and he was toting a 1911 part-time as a motorcycle courier. He said he "never even GOT a gun" till he got to France - and the first one is a Gew 88!
    2) GHWB was an Avenger pilot by all accounts I've read, thus TBM or TBF depending on maker.

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  21. Boat Guy,

    "1) the Gew 88 most certainly DID serve in WWI."

    I know they did in general, I was speaking to those particular two examples.

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  22. 'Least in Grandpa's case they were on the winning side...

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  23. Interesting aside: I clicked on the link you provided to the Gell-Mann Amnesia, and had a strong sense of deja vu while reading it. When I got to the comments, I found out why: the first comment was mine, from five years ago. The internet never forgets!

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  24. I've run across the same issue with even more prestigious musuems.

    The Smithsonian had a M-1 Carbine in a WWII display and in the stat listing described it as having a "10 round" magazine.

    The Smithsonian also has a 1970's era fan-made (and sold commercially) Phaser II replica marked as being an authtetic screen used original series prop. To anyone who knows anything about Star Wars props it's obviously one of the "James Kirk" sold phasers with all those characteristic details and none of the "correct" details for an authtenic prop.

    As to local musuems, I can't even remember all the mismarked, mislabelled, or downright wrong firearms info I've seen over the years. I've made a game of finding "what's wrong with this exhibit" with my wife.

    Oh, and even the NRA museum, while near perfect on the gun stuff, falls prey to this once they go outside their area of expertise. They are still displaying a stock Graflex flash unit as a "back up lightsaber prop" from Star Wars based on an old description from an auction. This is after people have pointed out that not only is this a standard flash unit, with no prop modifications, but that there is no evidence the prop house that sold the prop had anything to do with teh Star Wars movies.

    (Yeah, I'm not just a gun geek, I'm a SF prop geek as well... and when the two areas converge my SUPER GEEK POWERS activate)

    Rob (Trebor, my geek name)

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  25. I do like the posts on what you saw in the museum, but I bet you are as bad a companion in there as I am watching a war movie, made by Hollywood's best writers and directors. As much as I love my mother I was really disappointed she gave me the video Pearl Habor, when I liked Tora, Tora, Tora much better.

    Nice posts, but I am sure you could help the museum a bit with the corrections.

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  26. Earl, we nerds can be a pain in the ass to authorities. I mind a Ray Bradbury story, in which he met a small boy who pointed out that he had Phobos (or Deimos, I forget which) revolving the wrong way around Mars in one of his stories. Bradbury's response? "I hit him."

    Not that I think he actually did hit the kid, but I damn betcha he was thinking about it.

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  27. Tam, if you tire of that sporterized Kar 71, pls. let me know.

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