DFC1943Fl.Lt.

On ‎02‎/‎04‎/‎2018 at 12:58 AM, 2e0prp said:

what size are the tyres , i`m looking for  11.00 X 20.00 

Sorry they are 900x16

If any one wants some 9.00x16 for a Ferret I’ve got some, 7 actually, 2 on rims, 2 with tubes, one which is brand new never been fitted and the other 3 just tyres. All in good condition. I’m thinking of selling them, just wondering what sort of price to put on them. 

13 hours ago, snort said:

Ferret sold then Steve?

 

Hope so, didn’t come straight out with it, saying that he’ll get back to me. That means no he doesn’t want it. Just wish people would be honest with you and say no it’s not what I’m looking for. I don’t think he knows what he wants to be honest. Still may get a surprise.

Hello all, I am most likely looking to sell some ferret tyres with a couple that are on the rims. Just getting an idea if anyone would be interested and the sort of price range I would need to put on them. One's never been used and the others are all good with tread.

Well I’ve a 1942 but as said it is old spec and I don’t think I’m ready to let go of it just yet. Good luck in your search.

4 hours ago, matchlesswdg3 said:

I went through the process of trying to buy a decent original unmolested Jeep over a two year period.....and gave up!  TBF, the first one I saw was the best and I should have bought it, but I was wary of the price asked at the time.....only to find it looking very cheap only some 12 months later!  By last year I had decided that prices in general were just silly for something so common and......well, rather humdrum after you strip away the hype.  But I agree, the market is always correct.  Do these unsold eBay bangers get passed on to the professional Jeep restorers at a knockdown price?  Only to eventually re-appear with a £30k price tag for sale to those with more money than time/sense/imagination?  Not sure but I think its a brave person who thinks such stuff represents a good investment.  Anyhow, I turned my back on tiddly Willys and went with mighty Dodge.......anyone got some decent storage space in Kent?!!

Agree with you totally as well as the Dodge as I have a Dodge WC51. As with my Dodge when asked if it is original I just say to them ' Who knows, it's 70 odd years old and no doubt has been through a number of workshops in it's time, so I would say no it's not original from when it was first built. ' and this is when I get annoyed at people who say their jeep is original and rare. How the hell do they know it's exactly the same as when it was first built. They don't, so why say it is, when these things saw action they would have had bits replaced with what was available and came to hand. So the fact that some one's pride and joy is totally original is beyond belief. I dare say somewhere out there, there is a few which are unmolested but who has the right to honestly say that the jeep they have for sale is original and rare. I recently read an article with regards to the Willys and Ford jeeps with them saying that a WW2 jeep which is say a Ford would no doubt have various other parts from other jeeps on it due to combat conditions and replacing parts which were available to them at the time. So If a Ford has been totally restored with everything Ford on it, it's lost it's history which is a shame. Therefore it is not an original. The jeeps I have looked at have just been relisted time and time again. Then they disappear for a while and then, there they are again. As said, a jeep is worth only what some one is willing to pay for it, so why are most for sale at overrated prices and do not get sold.    

12 minutes ago, REME 245 said:

I can see a rear sight and carrying handle but not a front sight.

just had another look but its has ended. Item number is 222710401750. Might be worth giving them a call.

Good luck Steve.

Hi buddy, there is one for sale on Ebay. 

13 hours ago, BlueBelle said:

Am I missing something here? Please can someone explain how a Ferret Mk1 gets to be a Ferret Mk2/5 having "never had a turret fitted'?

I do like a good mystery.

Without a turret, the Ferret is quite cute and would grace my drive quite suitably here in Calgary

Hi there, this Mk1 is a very early reccon vehicle and was not made with a turret. On the 1-10-73 she joined the Royal Tank Reg. and was up armoured, extra armour added to the majority of her, making this ferret a Mk2/5. I had always wanted a Mk2 with a turret but the more I looked at the Mk1's the more I liked them. 1st time I drove the ferret was around the parade ground at Winsor Barracks, fond memories. You can fit a turret to this model is you so wish but I am now glad I got the Mk1, also a dam sight easier to get in and out of her.  

2 minutes ago, Markwise said:

so is this a mk 2/5 ferret thats stripped of it's turret? im a bit confused by your autograph and the ad's title...cheers

Hi mate, yes it was a Mk1 when it came off the production line. In the paperwork the reg. No. of 33BA93 says she was made in 1951/52 but D.I.S. Is 1954. It was up armoured on the 1-10-73 when she joined the RTR making her a Mk2/5. You can fit a turret on her but she is a early reconnaissance Ferret and never had one fitted. 

As said before, before I have been down that road of explaining everything but to no avail. To tell the truth I can't be asked anymore. If people are interested they can come and see. Not really worried about it being sold overseas, to much hassle. I have a few buddy's who have different WW2 vehicles for sale but nowt seems to be moving. It will sell when its ready, I still get to use her while I wait.

Hi Chris, thanks for your input. I have tried all types of listing on different sites and now just think that if anyone is interested they can contact me. The inside is exactly the same as when the last squaddie got out of her. Fuel tank is out as it’s been cleaned. Running out of a Jerry can. Got the centre bin lid and new hinge also got the number plate light just haven’t had time to sort things. The price is what I think it is worth with looking at what else is out there for sale. £11500 to £12000 allowing £2500 to £3000 to bring the inside up to scratch so ending up with a very clean Ferret for  about £15000. Seeing how most I’ve seen are fetching from £15000 to £18000. I know Mk2 seem to make more but Mk1’s are a hell of a lot easier to get in and out of. 

Mk1 Ferret running and road registered. Spare engine and some other spares. Looking for offers in the region of £12000.

Mine is up for sale at the moment. Don’t really want to see her go but it’s just sitting there. I’m looking at about £12500 for her. 

Hi Jon, just wondering if you have started on my GPMG. Just that I haven't heard anything for a while.

Regards Steve.

21 minutes ago, chris s said:

Hi all i`ve just discovered this site so this is my first time posting 

many years ago i bought a willys MB, its a project that someone started then lost interest.

In the mean time i`ve been helping my dad restoring his sentinel steam wagon amongst other things and life getting in the way so its been stashed in his shed for years.

However the wagon is nearly finish and the jeeps turn is approaching.

So now ive started looking for the parts to finish my MB, ive been searching on line but can only seem to find people listing repro stuff and the odd NOS parts.

what ive got is mostly original so id like to try finish it that way, im not looking for bargain parts to try turn a quick quid im just looking for parts to finish my jeep.

So my questions are does anyone one know of any dealers dealing in original used parts also are there any shows or meets that have a more jeep part dealers than others ?

any help would be most appreciated 

many thanks 

chris

 

Try Gavin Copeman  at Jeepparts uk for a start. Also look on a site called Milweb, they have a lot of contacts and people selling stuff.

Good luck Steve.

4 minutes ago, ruxy said:

Well , you seem to be able to identify the cases that are too £ costly , that is good as entering any market first time is a risk.  IMHO  you actually need to enter the market to learn the market and that is applicable to vehicles of historic interest.  Snakes & ladders , French imports inc. MALT + Hotchkiss, Israel & Greece etc.  Generally from 1960's - I would say most / all buyers of Jeeps have paid top $  ,  they use / show them  (most of the deck-chair sitters will give you their £ expectations) , when they sell , little profit , perhaps more if their luck is in. No certainties if they had put their £ capital elsewhere.  More than sufficient - they could have tried £ / cost averaging , hence often owners have 2 or 3 qty. as well as churn them.

Actually  I think the days of getting a mate to carry off a chassis and galv. bathtub of bits must have ended abt. 1980 - hence supply/demand of a heavy work input project, if any remain + if you don't ask a lot of £ , you don't get a lot of £..

I have been in the market a few years now and have bought and sold many a vehicle but never ripped the guts out of the buyer for an extortionate amount of money and always been far. I have a 1944 Dodge WC which I have now had for a year and it cost me £8500. This was last year when most were selling for £10,000 to £12,000. The seller knew the price he could have got but is a genuine bloke who does not rip people off. It was sold to me on the condition I didn't come home and put it on the market for a profit, which I could have done quite easily. What I'm getting at is the fact someone sells one for x amount, then someone else thinks mine better that that and sticks another grand or two on, so on and so on. Lets face it, an everyday run of the mill clean Willy's or Ford, forgetting all the, it's rare and I've got the full history bull. should run at £10k to £12k. When you start getting upwards of £20k and above it's just ridiculous. No jeep is worth that unless you have more money than sense and this is where it all goes pear shaped. I know everyone wants to get as much as possible if they are selling and that goes for anything. But when you can't sell it for a price, common sense should tell you your asking to much but this isn't the case, people just keep putting them up at the same price. A lot of friends of mine who would love a WW2 jeep all say the same, sellers are living in a world of their own. Sell at a profit by all means but don't try and rip people off just because you think it's that amount, if it's not selling then you are asking too much, simple. I have been watching 8 different jeeps on certain sites and they just keep getting relisted, some have been relisted 6 to 7 times, I mean it's not rocket science.   

Well another Willy's jeep for restoration  with a reserve of £6000 didn't sell. Just got to over £3700. When will people take note that the buying public are fed up with owners of jeeps for restoration are not prepared to pay stupid money for a wreck. I have been looking at these for some time now and can not understand why they just keep relisting them at these silly prices. I know I shall be ripped to pieces for this post but I think I speak for the majority of people who would love to own a ww2 jeep who would not be afraid of a certain amount of work to bring them up to a standard. I am looking to buy a jeep and am amazed at what a lot of sellers are expecting to get for their ( rare, untouched ) WW2 Willy's jeeps. These jeeps are not rare anymore, they are everywhere you look when you go to shows. I know they are easy to get parts for and fit in a garage and are a iconic vehicles but that should not make price rise to obscene heights for a jeep that is in such disrepair. Now the sellers on here with jeep's for sale will no doubt give me all the reasons why they command the prices they put them up for but still boils down to the same question, they are wrecks and not worth the price put on them. The people I know, some with jeeps say the same. One bloke who has a 1942 Willy's, running and looks great even says they are worth between £10,000 to £15,000 no more but when you get people with money and no sense who wake up one morning and think, I'd like one of those little jeeps to run around in, they look quite cool. Bang everyone jumps in and think, well mines better than that one, it's worth ??? Well, rip me to bit's and let the arguments commence.      

On ‎14‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 8:13 PM, Skyhawkes said:

Hi guys,

Finding a cheap deac Gimpy is the holy grail.  It's like trying to find a nice deac SA80.  I am sorry I have not responded to the questions in this string,  I don't use HMVF anymore, although I have an account.  Thanks to @MatchFuzee for dropping me a message to let me know about this discussion.

As the events and safety officer of the MVT I can answer some of your MVT insurance queries.   We have had a radical change in the insurance for our members.  It does mean that all of our members now have £5M public liability insurance when putting on a military display to the public.  All that is required to get this is a valid membership card and some id to prove you are that person.

Like all insurance packages there are a few things that aren't covered, these are as follows

- Stallholding and selling of military items

- Battle re-enactment, in terms of firing blank weapons and running through an arena in a mock battle.  You are covered for all static and walking re-enactments.

- The purchase of weapons, the MVT used to provide this cover for people to buy weapons, but with the growth of BB guns we were experiencing a huge rise in people joining for one year just to buy a weapon.  Since we are a vehicle club and not a gun club we decided that this was not in the interests of the charitable aims of the club.  Now you may say but that is extra income, however it brought with it a lot of issues, people buying BB guns for the wrong reasons, shopkeepers regularly calling us for clarification and unwanted interest with the authorities.

So in short, you cannot use your MVT card to buy weapons, but you can use it to prove you have Public liability insurance when you are re-enacting.  The MVT are not anti-gun however at the end of the day we are a vehicle club. 

I hope this answers your questions.  I am unlikely to look at this string again unless anyone else flags it up to me, so if you have any further queries I would be happy to answer them directly on e-mail - safety@mvt.org.uk.  

Tim Hawkes

 

Hi Tim and thanks for your input on this thread. I have now decided to go down the road of getting a Gimpy made to a very high standard like the one for sale on D&B Militaria. Not cheap but you pay for what you get and as said before in this thread, I think eventually you will not be able to obtain deacs so replicas are the way to go so long as they made to a high standard and look  realistic. I can see replicas increasing in price if deacs are no longer available. I was looking at the ones on Xfire & Mil/Muckabouts but want a more realistic looking Gimpy. As they say each to their own. 

7 minutes ago, FourFox said:

The GPMG replica offered by D&B has a very complicated specification in order to comply with the current requirements of various British and EEC laws and sensible requirements.

The de-act law changed early last year and has the effect of reducing newly de-activated machine weapons to historical ornaments with virtually no moving parts.

It also made it uneconomic to re-certify older de-act machine guns so that they may be legally sold or transferred between collectors and re-enactors. The last GPMG de-activated to the previous specification that I saw sold in excess of £4000 at a well known military fair in February last year (before the show even opened). I have not seen a new spec. GPMG on the market yet, but I am assured there have been one or two that comply with the current legislation. I suspect that the price remains high due to the scarcity of GPMG parts and the very good strategy of destroying all ex-service weapons to keep them out of the wrong hands.

This left a great hole in the market for many new and existing collectors, re-enactors and film makers who wish to acquire realistic weapons that would stand up to close scrutiny.

There was (and probably still is) further legislation planned to extend the firearms and shotgun laws to bring them into line with other EEC countries. This would also probably include replicas as well.  I have taken the view that this is likely to be some time in the future as the government has quite enough on it's plate without going out of it's way to antagonise several hundred-thousand voters at the moment with new laws that come from an organisation we are committed to leaving.

I have been purchasing legally available new and used parts of GPMG, 30 cal and 50 cal weapons for the past 15 years from military fairs and dealers and used them to fabricate satisfactory replicas to adorn my military vehicle restorations. A few have been passed on to other restorer friends but most have been retained for my own use. I have noticed that most parts are now very hard to come by and those parts available are becoming prohibitably expensive.

It is illegal to purchase any part of a real weapon that contravenes section 5 of the firearms legislation.

This is a somewhat complicated area, but in simple terms, if it is pressure bearing (especially the barrel), if it is part or all of a real receiver, breech block (or bolt) and including for some obscure parts...then it is a very serious offence to buy or sell such items.

It is however quite legal to purchase other parts and accessories that are not included in the prohibited list but be assured that there is little room for error in interpreting the law and the consequences of a wrong or foolish purchase will certainly alter your lifestyle for a number of years.

I now manufacture many of the parts required to complete a whole replica in my workshop. This is a slow time consuming task as there are almost 600 individual parts in a GPMG (honest). Even the rivets have to be individually made (they are modified so that a receiver cannot be converted to withstand the load of live firing). The main components are all very slightly different in size and tolerance so that parts of my replicas will not fit real weapons and vice-versa. Any internal parts are only there to facilitate coking and dry firing and will not transport bullets. Barrels are made from solid bar and are drilled from each end with 8mm drill. The joint invariably does not meet true so that it cannot be used to effectively launch a projectile. I do need the through hole however for those who need a gas banging conversion. Very realistic for film use. Final weapons finish is as near to the original as possible. I have my own phosphating plant and use original plating and paint finishes where possible.

Many of the accessories I use are new real parts from the original suppliers. I have quantities of scarce plastic parts purchased when they have become available. I have had to wait years to obtain some parts.

I take the view that there is no point in spending a fortune on a vehicle restoration getting every detail correct to period and specification only to ruin the whole effect with poor quality weapons. I know they are expensive but they take a lot of cash to buy the thousands of bits and many hours work.

This project has taken many years to perfect, with thousands of hours of drawings (several hundred) and hand made prototype parts. The results were shown to the public for the first tine at W&P last year and we had a great reception....including fooling many people who should know better into thinking they are real weapons. The GPMG was stripped and closely inspected by the authorities who were inspecting many stalls at W&P looking for illegal and stolen weapons and components. The gave us the thumbs up with a worthwhile comment...great.

PS The Manroy factory in Medway closed over a year ago. Manufacturing of the GPMG was transferred back to FN in Belgium (the patent holder). The site is now a housing estate. Many of the components were sold to legitimate dealers upon the closure of the factory and are now becoming increasingly scarce (and expensive).

VCR act applies to all replicas. You know what to do to comply.

Jon

 

 

Hi Jon, many thanks for your input to this thread. The GPMG you have shown is a fine example, are these for sale and if so, cost. What do you think to the one on D&B, worth that money or not. Have been looking at the airsoft M240 as an alternative but still would prefer the GPMG. I know it is just for show but I do like things to be as original as possible. Still waiting for as answer from Jack at FNHUK and been told there may be a chance of something maybe with regards to a replica, fingers crossed. 

On ‎03‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 1:08 PM, WCBOY said:

I dont know about the GPMG but I've had a 30 cal, 50 cal and bazooka from Crossfire and they have been good quality as far as replica's go.  I went to collect the guns and they are a proper engineering company.  I know they also supply some of the current army regiments for recruiting purposes.  Also spotted on the credits on guy martins ww1 tank that they supplied the replica Lewis guns.  I guess they can't be that bad!

I've heard worrying things about MM but by and large good things about Crossfire.  A few of my mates have bought from them and they seemed happy with what they had.  But they are replicas so don't expect like for like quality against a deact.

Just my thoughts.

Hi WCBOY, Yes the 30 and 50cals are not to bad as there is not a lot to them. Basically a rectangular box with a tube with holes in it. I have a set of plans for the 30cal. which I am in the process of getting the steelwork laser cut out to make one.  But the GPMG is a little bit more involved and there are a lot of bits and bobs missing from the replicas from these two sites. As said you do get what you pay for. Must admit I do like mine to look as realistic as possibly.   

26 minutes ago, MatchFuzee said:

Just read this on https://www.mvt.org.uk/joining

Airsoft/ Deactivated weapons
The MVT Public Liability Insurance does not cover the purchase or use of deactivated and airsoft weapons.

 

Yep your are right, just looked on the link. I am still waiting for an answer from FNHUK which is now the trading company of Manroy Engineering. 

1 minute ago, Tony B said:

The requirment for Reailstic Imitation Firearms, ie proper coloured airsoft or BB . is membership of an organisation with third party public liability insurance. I am also a member of the Countryside Alliance. That has a third party members insurance that specifically mentions shooting sports and military re-enactments. 

As MVT now have a member's public liability insurance it covers. I can understand a supplier doing Due Dilligence to cover their own backside. 

Yes Tony right on all accounts, I think he is covering his own backside just to be sure. All these new EU laws have really ruined the collecting of deac's and alike. I'd love anyone to get one of my deac's live firing again, tell you what, I wouldn't want to be near them when they pull the trigger. LOL.

Thinking it might be time to pass her on as I don't get to drive her as often as I should. Looking for offers around the £12500 mark. She is a early Mk1. with the square side hatches and a hull number of 119. Upgraded in 1972 when she entered the RTR to a Mk2/5. Any questions please PM me.

Cheers Steve. 

1 hour ago, andym said:

At £2750 I'd be inclined to ask if Manroy are still in the business of making you a de-ac.

Andy

Hi Andy, thanks for the info. Never heard of them but will look into it. Do they make replicas for the public then or are they a government forces company designed to make live firing weapons for the military.