Well, things were complicated back then. There was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The French needed rifles. They bought .43 Spanish rifles from the Spanish (or they may have been rifles that the Spanish had ordered from Peabody but failed to pay for so Peabody sold them to the French). The Germans captured them and then when the proof law of 1891 came along proofed and marked them. That's one story. Another story is that the Spanish then got them back and doled them out to the Cubans for the Spanish-American War of 1898. Guns and rifles built in Germany and the German principalities before the 1890s typically did not carry proof marks, but the 1891 proof law “grandfathered” these arms [whether or not they had been made in Germany] by mandating that they be submitted to the proof house and marked with a crown-over-V, the V standing for vorrat or “on hand”.  Any German gun or rifle carrying a crown-over-V dates to 1891 or earlier. Naturally, the US arsenal was unable to blow up a Peabody in extensive testing so there was no way one would have failed the standard German proof;-)

I've said it many times and will undoubtedly say it again: it's just plain amazing what the people who hang out here know!

Bill Lawrence

And this is what mine looks like now. I've had it since I was a boy and was given another one when I was a teen. There seemed to be a lot of them around in South Florida back then (Cuba connection?). I saw a picture of a Peabody sporter in Grant and decided I would make mine into something similar. In high school, and while it was still a 43 Spanish, I shot it a lot starting with vintage ammo (also a bunch around back then) and reloading by using an icepick to pluck out the fired Berdan and then using a vise to seat a new Berdan (also around) and bullets pulled from the old ammo that failed to fire. The vintage 43 Mauser ammo in its GI boxes always fired in my 71/84. The serial number of my Peabody is 91199.

Thanks for adding that information. The serial number range represents the 50,000 Spanish Peabodys which were made. Those that did not go to France were sold to Spain and Mexico.