JIM OLSON SAID:
What about the $19.95 COD? What do we know about how that was paid?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Lee Harvey Oswald paid the $19.95 COD that was due on the revolver. He obviously had to pay that at the post office [or at the Railway Express office] before they'd give him his revolver package. In addition, he also paid another $1.27 for freight charges (or "service" charge as it was officially called), which was a fee retained by the Railway Express Agency.
So, LHO's total cost for the revolver was $31.22, which was almost $10 more than he paid for his 40-inch Carcano rifle.
Note -- Oswald, of course, ordered a 36-inch model rifle from the magazine ad, but quite obviously what happened was this: Klein's Sporting Goods Co. in Chicago was out of stock of the 36-inch carbines, and so they sent Oswald/"Hidell" an almost-identical gun instead--a 40-inch Model 91/38.
I'd wager to say that Lee Harvey never even knew the difference. I doubt he got out a yardstick and measured his rifle after he got it. Of course, a lot of conspiracy nuts--Jim DiEugenio among them--love to prop up this irrevelant "36-inch vs. 40-inch" discrepancy as a big hole in the "LN" case. Actually, it's not even a speed bump.
Plus, I'll also add this:
Many conspiracy theorists like to contend that a 36-inch Carcano is considered to be a "carbine", while a 40-inch Carcano is not a "carbine", but a "short rifle" instead.
Well, whether those terms are officially true or not for the two different sizes of Mannlicher-Carcanos, it's totally immaterial. And the reason it's immaterial and irrelevant is because KLEIN'S SPORTING GOODS (the company that sold both types/lengths of Carcanos in the year 1963) classified BOTH the 36-inch rifle AND the 40-inch model as "CARBINES" in their respective magazine ads in 1963.
And the proof is in the 1963 Klein's ads themselves. The top ad shown below is the one Oswald used from the February '63 American Rifleman magazine. The bottom ad came from another magazine dated November 1963.
And what do we find in the description in BOTH of those ads? We find the words "6.5 ITALIAN CARBINE" in BOTH ads. And the February ad specifically says "36 inches" for the overall length of the "carbine", while the November ad says "40 inches" for the overall length for a rifle which is ALSO described as a "carbine":
JIM OLSON SAID:
David,
Good info.
The word carbine means short rifle. So, yes, it is the same thing.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Well, maybe a few conspiracy theorists ought to go tell James DiEugenio that fact. He thinks they are two completely different things. (And he never listens to a thing I say, of course.)
http://dictionary.com/browse/carbine
http://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/carbine
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
The 40-inch short rifle is NOT a Carbine. Different species.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Not according to the Klein's ads. Just look here.
The ads for the FORTY-inch gun clearly say "6.5 Italian CARBINE". Are you suggesting that Klein's was wrong when they put the word "CARBINE" in those ads for the 40-inch gun? Was the mail-order company that stupid, Tony?
And the whole "Carbine" vs. "Short rifle" argument is just semantics anyway. And, IMO, it's an incorrect argument being made by the CTers. According to several online dictionaries [like the two I referenced above], the literal definition of "carbine" IS, in fact, "short rifle".
MILES SCULL SAID:
At the time of the mail order rifle purchase, Klein's did not have the 40-inch [rifle] in stock and could not (and did not) have sold a 40-inch then.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Obviously, Miles has a screw loose here. Klein's definitely did have a 40-inch Mannlicher-Carcano carbine in stock as of 3/20/63.
How do we know this with 100% certainty?
Because Klein's shipped Carcano Rifle #C2766 to "A. Hidell" (Oswald) on March 20th, 1963.
And what is the length of Carcano Rifle #C2766?
Answer: 40 inches. (Actually, it's 40.2 inches to be even more precise.)
I guess some off-the-wall conspiracy theorists (Miles?) want to believe that the document pictured below (Waldman Exhibit No. 7), which was filled out by
Klein's Sporting Goods in March 1963, is a "fake" document too, like all of the other documentation that exists in the official record connected with the JFK assassination investigation which proves beyond all possible doubt that
Lee Harvey Oswald ordered a rifle from Klein's in early 1963:
David Von Pein
April 18, 2010
April 19, 2010
April 1, 2017
