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"War trophy" paperwork without the trophy: Any value?


Martinjmpr
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I'm crossposting this from a gun board I'm on, but thought I'd inquire here:

 

I've been organizing and digging through my old paper files this week - long overdue (I tend to be something of a "paperwork pack rat" - probably a reflex I learned in the Army.)

Anyway, I came across the "war trophy" paperwork for an SKS I bought at a gun shop in Denver (which has long been out of business) in the early 1980's.

 

The SKS was a Vietnam bring-back. I ended up trading it a couple years later (without ever having fired it) because at that time 7.62 x 39 ammo was almost impossible to find and hideously expensive when you could (if only i'd have known that 10 years later SKS's would sell for the price of a cheap television set and ammo would be damn near as cheap as .22lr. Oh well, hindsight's 20/20, eh?)

The War Trophy paperwork is from the Marine who brought it back in 1969. If I could find who has that SKS they'd probably value the paperwork but I'd have no idea of how to do that.

Just wondering if anybody here thinks "war trophy" paperwork is worth anything absent the trophy before I put it in the recycle bin.

 

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I think they have some value definatly, I tend to pick them up when i can do so reasonably. They are a neat document from a soldier's military career and sometimes I like displaying them with a different gun in my collection of the type mentioned. I dont do this to fool anyone because if anyone cared they could just check the serial number, I just think its neat and completes each piece. I do believe that I have seen "war trophy" or "bring back" papers for items that aren't firearms, German helmets come to mind, and those I think would probably have more vale because they aren't serialized specifically to the item.

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Defiantly worth holding onto I have seen them selling between $15-30 lately if it has anything interesting on it or someone can use it they might even pay more!

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Definitely the docs have a value. I've seen docs without weapons go for 50 bucks and I once paid $75 for the docs to a 91/30 PU. I still have hopes of one day finding the matching rifle! And I've offered more for docs that the guy still won't sell me even after over 20 years.. I consider them to also have historical value, especially for certain line units in certain timeframes.

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Does it matter if they are what appear to be photocopies rather than originals? What I have are two sheets of paper, legal sized, the first has a copy of a DD-603 and the second is a document from the US Embassy in Saigon.

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Martinjmpr,

If they are just photocopies of the original, I'd say they don't really hold any value at all, except maybe to the person that bought the rifle years ago. If they are originals instead, they will still have some value as quoted above. Post some photos if you can or send me a message and I'll shoot my email to you and let you know if they are original or not. I collect the papers themselves, so if original it may hold some value to me.

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Martinjmpr,

 

If they are just photocopies of the original, I'd say they don't really hold any value at all, except maybe to the person that bought the rifle years ago. If they are originals instead, they will still have some value as quoted above. Post some photos if you can or send me a message and I'll shoot my email to you and let you know if they are original or not. I collect the papers themselves, so if original it may hold some value to me.

 

I agree, to me at least if they are photocopies they have very limited or no collector value on their own..

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