Rock Island September 2018 Premiere Firearms Auction catalog is now online. Just like in the case of one of our previous articles, I browsed the catalog and selected five of the most interesting lots that are weird, rare, unusual or significant in terms of history and firearms technologies. The names of the guns are linked to the corresponding Rock Island Auction page where you can learn more about these guns and see more detailed pictures of any particular firearm. The list goes in no particular order.

I think there is no need to mention how rare is this primer-actuated Garand prototype is. This rifle is known as the Type 2 Garand because it was the second primer-actuated semi-auto rifle designed by John Garand. The mechanism of this rifle works in conjunction with special ammunition. Upon firing, the primer of the cartridge moves back for several thousands of an inch and pushes the firing pin (which doubles as sort of a piston) rearward thus initiating the cycling process.

Estimated 25 of such rifles were ever made which makes this rifle one of the most desirable items in the collection of any US firearms collector.

The estimated price range for this rifle is $50,000 – $75,000.

Another M1 Garand which is the serial number 1,000,000. But that’s not the only thing that makes this rifle unique. This particular M1 Garand was presented to John Cantius Garand on April 30, 1953, during his retirement ceremony held in Kimball Hotel in Springfield, Massachusetts.

This cased rifle is consigned with a silver plated en-bloc clip and eight gold-plated dummy rounds. Along with the rifle, the lot also includes many other items related to the life of the legendary arms designer and his iconic rifle.

Below you can find a video published by RIAC where Joel Kolander of Rock Island Auction Company tells about this rifle.

Estimated price of this M1 Garand is $225,000 – $375,000

3) TANKS!

Yes! Not one, but two tanks are consigned to Rock Island September 2018 Premiere Firearms Auction. One of them is an M41A1 Walker Bulldog light tank and the second one is an M5A1 Stuart light tank.

This particular WW2 M5A1 Stuart tank was manufactured on April 15, 1943. It came back to the US in 1980-90s from Portugal. According to the RIAC description, it starts and moves well. If you want to learn more about this particular tank and the Stuart tank in general, here is a video published by The_Chieftain YouTube channel.

The M41A1 Walker Bulldog tank was manufactured by Cadillac from 1951 to 1954 and replaced the M24 Chaffee. Although being a US tank, it never was used in combat by the US military. These tanks were used in South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) during the Vietnam War. About 5,500 of these tanks were made and they were mainly exported to US ally nations.

Often times auctioned firearms have high value depending to whom they belonged to. Even if that person was a Nazi Germany Reichsmarschall like in the case of this lot. This gold-plated and engraved Walther PPK pistol was surrendered by Hermann Goering to US Armed Forces.

Lieutenant Jerome Shapiro of the 142nd Intelligence & Reconnaissance Platoon is the US officer to whom Goering surrendered. Interestingly, by the time of surrender, besides this cased Walther PPK, Goering also possessed a Smith & Wesson revolver which “he intended to deliver personally to the President of the United States in a ceremonial formal surrender of Nazi Germany“. After delivering Georing to the Allies, Shapiro was allowed to keep this Walther pistol as a war trophy. The pistol belonged to Shapiro until his passing in 1975.

This pistol is still in good shape retaining the 60% of its original gold finish. It is consigned with its red leather bound case and a gold-plated magazine. The estimated price range that this pistol will most likely be sold at is $80,000 – $120,000.

If you are following our series of most expensive firearms sold in gun auctions, then it should not be a surprise for you to see in these lists Winchester lever action rifles. These rifles are highly valued by the collectors especially if they are richly engraved by a renown engraver John Ulrich, come with a high-grade wood, have gold and platinum inlaid elements such as the animal figures and are in excellent condition retaining almost 100% of the original finish. All these features can be said when describing this particular Winchester Model 1886 Express rifle.

Besides the mentioned features, what makes this rifle unique for the upcoming RIAC auction is that it has the highest estimated price range among the all 2,866 lots. This rifle is expected to be sold at a price point of $500,000 to $750,000. This rifle alone can be sold at a higher price than the two tanks of our list combined.

In the video embedded below, Kevin Hogan, the president of Rock Island Auction Company, gives a more detailed description of this Winchester Model 1866.

And that’s the list of firearms (plus a couple of tanks) that I think are the most unusual, rare and unique ones that will be auctioned in the upcoming Rock Island September 2018 Premiere Firearms Auction. It was quite hard to pick five from a huge variety of historically significant, beautiful and cool guns from this auction’s catalog. There are many lots that could be easily included to the list such as the 40mm Bofors autocannon, Guycot chain pistol, Sedgley “Fist Gun” glove pistol, Lebeda Engineering Pocketwatch BB Gun, Ruger hand drills (which we covered separately) and so on. If you have browsed the auction’s catalog (which you can do by clicking here), let me know what gun would you include into this list.

Images from www.rockislandauction.com