Mauser-Japan Standard Modell & K98k Contracts

 I went through several posts on GB about Japanese K98k contract, I'd like to provide some information from Japanese documents. I am not sure if somebody else has done similar job or not, hope I am not repeating.

Japan ordered three contracts of Mauser rifles. The very first one ordered in 1938, Japanese reported 8000 "Original Mauser rifles" ( オリヂチル · ﾓｰｾﾞﾙ) were ordered in October 1938. In 1937/38 Mauser sold only 185443.69RM weapons to Japan and 31037.25RM weapons to Manchukuo.  This contract recently has been confirmed by Mr. Jon Speed's Mauser Archive research that 8000 Standard Modell were sold to Japan. 

Be aware alongside Mauser rifle is Type I rifles bought by Ministry of Army and were not specifically for Imperial Navy though many of which were sent to Navy and Marine forces. (My writing about the history of Type I rifle: History of Japanese Type I Rifle – Surplused)

Here's Japanese records of first contract.

The second contract were ordered in early 1939 of which Jon Speed has lost of details and has been thoroughly discussed in K98k book. Japan bought 20000 K98k rifles at a cost of 5 British Pounds per rifle.

Here's a part of Japanese draft contract dated Feb 1939. In the contract, Japanese required rifles firstly inspected by Wehrmacht then by Japanese inspectors.

The third contract was ostensibly for two Japanese puppet regimes in mainland China: North China provisional government and Mongol United Autonomous Government, obviously, they've never been the major users of these rifles. Based on Japanese documentation, at least 6000 Mauser rifles were provided to Japanese puppet regimes in mainland China during the war. This contract is composed of rifles, Mauser pistols and light machine guns.

Half of the third contract rifles for North China provisional government were shipped on December 23 1939, arrived in February 1940 in Yokohama, Japan. (Usually it takes cargo ships 4 to 8 weeks from Hamburg to China or Japan). The rest 10000 rifles were claimed to be shipped two weeks after signing the contract but the delivery never been made as Mauser archives has shown. I guess it is because Mauser was too busy to supply Wehrmacht. Japan originally planned to buy 70K to 80K rifles, so after that they turned to buy more Vz24 from CZ.

Here's documentation of North China provisional government order.