In the past, I collected Marlin firearms... until it turned into a money game. Then I got interested in Italian rifles. Bought a nice one for a fast $50 (those days are gone forever!) and started seeing more. I wanted to research them, but there was only a pamphlet in print at the time. So I started grabbing them and eventually had enough to write the first English language book on the topic.

I've pretty much no interest in them now except for colonial items. This is my Italian East Africa grouping. After WW1, Italy got a ton of arms and ammo from Austria-Hungary as reparations, much of which was used to arm native levies in East Africa = Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. Most of the long rifles were cut down, but all remained in 8x50R caliber.

Top to bottom: Budapest M.95, Steyr long rifle, OEWG M.88/90, 1870/87 Italian Vetterli, 1870/87/15 Italian Vetterli in 6,5 caliber, and a
a Carcano M91 long rifle with the super scarce RE mark.

Stories vary on this, but basically, it was issued to regular army troops in the colonies while AOI marked guns were strictly for natives. Supposedly, natives found with an RE marked rifle were hanged, but that smells of a gun show story. Believe what you like.

I've heard several times a few GEW 88s will be found with the AOI mark, but I've never seen one. SW
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