AK47 captured in Tet Offensive at American Embassy
- Login to post comments
Sometimes I get to see such interesting things in my line of work that I just feel the need to shout about them as loud as I can. This is one of them.
I do some consulting work in areas of Title II issues for James D. Julia (the big auction house in Fairfild) and because of my relationship with them I sometimes have access to some VERY rare and interesting things. When they told me about this particular gun that was coming in for their Fall auction I couldn't get there fast enough.
I asked them if I could fondle it and research some of the materials that came with it to do an article for Small Arms Review because I wanted to share the story with all the EmmaGees I could and they aggreed.
This gun was captured during the attack on the American Embassy in Saigon January 31, 1968 and its posession and ride home is completely documented. The people who played a part in it are amazing. The REAL cool part is that someone in our community (in a higher tax bracket than I) has the opportunity to own this historic piece because it is fully transferable and it will be auctioned off in October. Something like this doesn't come around very often so it makes me tingle with excitement waiting for the auction.
As a MASSIVE added bonus, included in the items that come with the winning bid is a VHS tape of the unedited CBS footage of the attack and the aftermath. There are lots of things I heard about that attack that don't appear quite as they were reported and this unedited footage is quite a treasure as well.
Anyway, the complete article is in the October issue of SAR. I just couldn't wait to talk about this piece anymore. Above is a pic of the gun from the Julia website and here is a link to the auction page with all the Class III goodies: http://www.juliaauctions.com/auctions/div_catalog_278_sh.asp
If someone here in at AMG is fortunate enough to be the new owner of this gun I hope you will let the rest of us know.
P.S. I put this on the public square and not the "Liberty" board as I thought the historic interest was broad enough to be of interest to most if not all members.
Yes, it is a real Russian gun and the one in the smaller photo before it has been "liberated" from the attacker who has assumed room temp in the pic.
When I went back to Saigon in November 2006, the hotel we stayed in was directly accross the street from the former US Embassy which is now an apartment/condo/office complex. The wall that was around it during the war has been removed.
- Login to post comments
That's pretty neat! What do you think it will realize price wise? I note that it has a milled reciever, is it Chinese or Russian? The most memorable AK I've ever encountered was in a police station in Northern Virginia (may have been in Vienna) where I had stopped to ask directions. In a display case on the wall they had an assortment of what I assume were confiscated weapons, the center piece of which was a completely nickel plated AK. This was in the early seventies when AKs, never mind plated ones, weren't anywhere near as common as they are today, in fact they were a downright oddity.