Deactivated BREN MK I

**VIS35PL** · 02-19-2016, 03:38 PM

Hello!
I am a firearms collector from Poland and this is my first post on the forum. I want to buy a deactivated BREN MK I, actually before entry into force of the new EU law... The seller sent me some photos of a particular example and it is MK I BREN gun with (commonly seen) buttstock, non adjustable bipod from MK II etc. There is nothing wrong with that, a lot of these machine guns were refurbished... The most important thing for me are the markings, especially year of production. You can clearly see on the picture, that "in the date place" the year of production was milled away, but there is a new date inside! I have seen other BREN guns with milled away date, however please help me if this particular is correct or not and what does this really mean.
Thank you very much for your time and help!

**m3bobby** · 10-01-2016, 05:01 AM

This is an ex Greek gun, someone has restamped a date on it.

**Composite** · 10-01-2016, 09:00 AM

That's interesting...how are you telling it's a Greek gun? (I don't know much about these things)...and re the re-dating...presumably that's a recent event....

**m3bobby** · 10-01-2016, 07:08 PM

I know quite a few of the dealers and I have at least 3 examples like this myself, one of which also has Nazi capture marks on it. They all came into the UK with the Greek guns and some even had the serial no removed. It's thought that they may have been stolen by Greek terrorists and returned as part of the cease fire agreement. I was also contacted by a Greek museum who had one of these which they bought at a Market!!

**VIS35PL** · 10-01-2016, 07:38 PM

Thank you very much for your answer. I've bought this one before entry into force of the new EU law. In Poland we used to have pretty good deactivation rules. You have to register such guns on your local police station, however this guns are fully strippable. I can remove the barrel, the gas piston is intact... Somebody, on other forum, suggested that this might be a gun made out of "rejected" parts, which were later "fixed". Your opinion is however more probable, since you are a bren gun collector. Do you think that this "new date" was made by a gun dealer ? In my opinion this does not have any sense, because this would not increase the value of the piece. The serial number seems to be original, however the serial number on the lower assembly was alsow removed and there is a new one in (it matches the rest of the gun)! What do you think about this ?

**m3bobby** · 10-01-2016, 08:41 PM

I can't speak on behalf of Polish dealers but in the UK, the guns with out dates weren't selling as well as those that did so it's possible that someone has put a date on it to help sell it and not to increase its value. The serial number is the correct format and is correct for a 1943 gun. The lower will be a replacement from another gun, the number of the donor gun has been removed and the new number electro penciled on. It's quite normal for these ex Greek guns.

I have an ex Greek 1940 Inglis Mk1 that had the incorrect lower. 18 months later I bought a few bargain basement 1940 Enfield Mk1s and the lower from one of these had the matching original number for the Inglis gun. When I asked the dealer about this he said quite a few guns came over in pieces and some had been mixed up during deactivation.

**m3bobby** · 10-01-2016, 08:48 PM

As to rejected parts, the main body would sometimes fail inspectors checks and these bodies would be sent to a special rectification bay. When corrected, the bodies would be placed back in the appropriate section of the production line. They wouldn't have altered any other features. The pantograph markings and serial number were the last machining process to be carried out. I have seen many 1940 bodies with 41 dates and serial numbers because of this.

**VIS35PL** · 10-01-2016, 10:08 PM

Actually I've bought this gun from a german dealer. It was then imported into Poland by polish licenced gun dealers. This german dealer used to have some fake MG42s, made from yugo parts mostly. He had some bren guns on his website and there were pictures of guns with date removed. In my opinion my gun can not be called a fake. It probably has this date added, but it was manufactured in 1943 anyway so it's "ok". The "greek part of it's history" makes it also a very interesting piece.

**m3bobby** · 10-01-2016, 10:35 PM

You can't fake a Bren really. It's not like the MG42 that was copied for years. There were only 3 Mk1 Bren manufacturers, 2 Mk2 and 2 Mk3. There have been fake Bren L4 Brens but none of those were very authentic.