Earlier this year we were at Waffen Sammlerborse, which is a Swiss Gun Show. There’s a lot of interest in firearms in Switzerland and it also has a lot of wealthy firearm collectors. The line to get into the show was 30 min long. Swiss citizens have access to a much wider range of firearms than US citizens (including full-autos with the right license), so there was some pretty cool stuff here and there.
Here are three M1 Carbines, an Irwin Pederson, an IBM and a Standard Products. I’ve seen a lot of M1 Carbines at Swiss gun shops and there were a bunch at the show. Over 6 million M1 Carbines were manufactured and vast quantities were shipped to various countries during the Cold War through various military-support programs. Re-importation of firearms that were supplied as part of US-military support programs is restricted by US law so presumably this makes these more readily available to European markets.
The Irwin Pedersen-manufactured M1 Carbine is one of the rarest out there, with less than 4,000 manufactured. My understanding is that none were actually accepted into US military service so it would be fascinating to determine how this ended up in Switzerland. Maybe someone in the comments can fill us in? Perhaps an Irwin Pedersen receiver was used for a Saginaw rifle?
There’s definitely a lot of interest in military history in Switzerland, particularly WWII history. There was actually a group of WWII reenactors in 82nd Airborne combat attire on the top floor of the show with a whole tent and sandbag / mortar position setup.
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