Was it certified numbers matching, or force matched??
What would you consider "certified" to be??
Unless you have valid, historical documentation, a chain of custody with sworn affidavits acceptable in court, all the way from the maker's shipping dock to the hands of the guy you're buying it from, you've really got nothing but a story.
And, the entire issue is based on the general assumption that a gun with all matching parts numbers has all the original parts it had when it left the factory.
Therefore, since its "obviously" all original, its worth more money to collectors, so it sells for more to everyone, collector, or not.
The problem with this is, other than just assuming its all original, how do you prove it is?? Complete chain of custody records for these guns simply never existed.
The "forced match" is possible because of the German practice of marking several of the parts of the guns with the LAST TWO DIGITS of the gun's serial number.
But, its only the last two digits and many German arms were serialized in repeating number blocks, which further clouds the issue.
Say you have a warehouse full of guns to search through and ser# 123498 is missing a numbered part, but you have ser# 456798 that does have the part that #123498 is missing. #456798 is missing some other stuff or is damaged etc so its a parts gun. You take the needed part off and put it on #123498 and
voila, you now have a matching parts gun.
matching parts gun sells for more money, you just increased your profit, and it "looks right" because all the parts say "98".
Is this a crime? Not exactly. It's fraud if you claim the gun is all original, and you know it isn't, but if you don't claim that, if all you claim is that the parts all have matching numbers, that is factual. Letting the buyer
assume that means its all original, isn't ethical, but its not a criminal offense. And that is what many believe Michell's Mausers did, have done, and possibly still are doing.
Read their ads closely, you'll see that what they actually claim are things that are verifiable facts. But if you think the gun is worth the asking price based on what you assume, that's on you.
The old wisdom when it comes to historical guns is, you buy the gun, NOT the story. Guns with stories are everywhere. Guns with verified historical provenance are exceedingly rare, and that is why they're worth so much. The rarity is what makes them more valuable.
Interestingly enough, you never hear this issue come up with US milsurps. There is no "force match" possible because we never numbered any of the parts to the gun, and while there are examples of guns having all the parts from the same manufacturer, there are also guns that never had all the parts from the same maker and are fully historically correct.