Welcome!

First and foremost, this is a hobby.  I have a 'real' job, a family, and lots of outside interests.  I enjoy what I do here, but I try to balance it with everything else.  Which means I'm always behind and there's always more stuff to do.

I've always been fascinated by the period when England's imperial reach extended across the planet, followed by World War I and then through the years of transition to the modern world.  That time period, roughly from Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (1897) until the death of Britain's last imperial lion, Winston Churchill (1965), overlaps the era of the Enfield rifle, 1888 - 1978. 

I am a collector.  For a while I simply collected rifles, then eventually grew bored with it.  One day I found myself curious about a British regimental mark on an Enfield rifle, and wondered whose mark it was and where they were and what they were doing at the time the rifle joined the regiment.  Overnight, I acquired a focus for my collection - and an excuse to hit used bookstores looking for books, photos and archive materials.

My first Enfield had an oiler in the buttstock.  I had no idea what it was.  As I learned more about the makers and marks of the rifles I discovered that next-to-nothing was known about the makers and marks of the humble oilers. I found myself on the hunt for marked oilers, as well as information about the makers.

I am a serious collector.  A serious collector doesn't just collect things, a collector gathers knowledge. In the old days a museum curator (basically a collector employed by a museum) would have had a stack of index cards to keep track of various parts of the collection, reference materials and to-do lists.  A website is simply another way of collecting and organizing data. (And is way better than index cards!!)

And so here we are.  I am an Enfield collector who is particularly interested in the makers and marks of Enfield oilers.  As I find new marks - or other collectors send them to me - I post the information.  Generally, I do not post an item as a 'fact' unless I can lay my hands on several independent sources to confirm it.  I am particularly interested in regimentally marked Enfield rifles - rifles marked with letters, numbers, or symbols that identify the rifle as belonging to or used by a particular regiment, group, police, gendarmerie, school, or militia at a particular time. 

If you have an interesting item, pic, book or archive material, I'm always interested in buying or trading.  I sell some 'spares' as my collection matures. 

I welcome your thoughts, comments and suggestions.  I hope you find the information in this website useful as well as fascinating.  I have - and I enjoyed putting it together.  Enjoy your visit.

David J. Gadbois
Enfield-Stuff