BACKGROUND: Among other restrictions, the Treaty of Versailles banned Germany from developing any type of general purpose machine gun. To circumvent this, German development of an all purpose machine gun was secretly being done in Switzerland in the early 1930's. By 1934 designer Louis Stange of the Rheinmetall armaments factory had made improvements to the secret machine gun developed in Switzerland and the MG34 was introduced as an all purpose selective fire weapon. In spite of the relatively high production cost, the MG34 was accepted by the H.Fzm, Heeresfeldzeugmeisterei, (Army Ordnance Department), a subsection of the OKH, Oberkommando des Heeres, (High Command of the Army), that was responsible for testing, evaluation and eventual issue of all ordnance, and deliveries of the MG34 began in 1936. In 1937 due to the high cost and manufacturing time of the MG34 development began on another general purpose machine gun which utilized stamped and pressed components making it cheaper and quicker to produce. Further developments resulted in the introduction of the MG42 general purpose machine gun in late 1941. Of Note: With a rate of fire of roughly nine hundred rounds per minute, the MG34 was a formidable weapon with automatic and semi-automatic firing capabilities and production continued even after the cheaper and higher rate of fire MG42 was introduced.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: The tooled steel trigger housing with finger guard and bolted on bakelite grips with impressed, horizontal, grooves for a secure grip are all intact. The trigger housing is well marked with the impressed letters consisting of "S" indicating, Sicherheit, (Safety), and "F" indicating Feuer, (Fire). The dual action, rocker trigger allowed for either single or sustained fire and is well marked with the impressed letters, "E" indicating, Einzelschuss, (Single shot/semi-automatic), and "D" indicating, Dauerfeuer, (Sustained fire). Looks to retain about 90% of its original bluing. Please Note: This can not be shipped to the United States as ATF guidelines on weapons deactivation are different than Canadian laws.