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Hello from Milan, Italy!
I have looked at just over 9200 Model 61 rifles while compiling my survey and this is a first. The proof stamps on the receiver and the barrel are applied upside down!! I get the feeling that something is not quite right with this one! And could we get a bit more “aged smudges” on the pamphlet??? Be careful out there if you are bidding. https://www.gunbroker.com/item/1042340967
Michael
Model 1892 / Model 61 Collector, Research, Valuation
You’re at a fashion show in Milan, aren’t you…I hope you stroll the catwalk with style! Have some pizza for me.
Whoops on the upside-down stamping 
Jeremy P said
You’re at a fashion show in Milan, aren’t you…I hope you stroll the catwalk with style! Have some pizza for mWhoops on the upside-down stamping
No…. No fashion shows on this trip. Though, eleven years ago my wife and I stumbled into the Vogue Fashion Night in Milan at the begining of a 4 month trip to Italy. What a wonderful evening street scene. Had a great time with about 50,000 new friends!!! This trip is just to visit some dear friends who moved away last June. Back to Houston in 5 days!
I have not seen inverted proof stamps on the more than 20,000 possible rifles in various models.
Michael
Model 1892 / Model 61 Collector, Research, Valuation
Another red flag for me would be the buggered screw in the butt plate on a rifle so pristine otherwise.
Nevada Paul
Life Member NRA
My fake-o-meter is pegging when I page through the photos of this octagonal Model 61.
The smudges on the manual are very artistic, but the photo that glows in the dark is the closeup of the buttplate. Look very carefully at the slots on the two screws.
At the very least, the buttplate has been removed and reinstalled, the first operation likely being the one done with a hardware store screwdriver. Winchester didn’t pack and ship guns in 1949 with buggered screw slots.
I haven’t had the chance to examine at higher magnification the photo that includes the takedown bolt head but its slot appears distorted under its bluing as well.
The overlabel on the box end may or may not be genuine but can easily be reproduced with a color laser printer. Why bother? To conceal nonconforming marks on the underlying cardboard.
I don’t know whether the box is faked, non-original, or washed in the Blood but, for my money, the gun has been restored/reblued.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA, amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
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