I got curious - a dangerous thing - and ordered one of the $69.95 GEW 88s from Old Western Scrounger. They implied they were beat up, and they weren't kidding. It appears to be a GEW 1888 in original configuration.
The stock is essentially complete, but has a fairly serious and ugly crack in front of the barrel band from some trauma that has also punctured and cracked the side of the barrel shroud. The crack runs most of the way through the stock. The wood is covered from head to toe in dings and gouges.
The receiver has been pretty thoroughly scrubbed, only the (very worn) serial number is visible. The bolt, rear sling swivel and rear sight slider are missing (as advertised). Also missing is the cleaning rod. The right side of the rear sight has been smashed inwards. The bore appears clean, sharp and surprisingly shiny.
So it's pretty much a wall-hanger - as I expected. I need to disassemble and see how bad the corrosion is under the wood. The barreled receiver appears sound enough, but it would take a lot of work to make a shooter out of this, since its missing all the hard-to-get parts. I'm going to use it as a testbed to refine my stock cleaning/repair and metal cleaning/conservation skills. I'll probably get a complete bolt for it for display purposes and as a spare for a future, yet-to-be-acquired shooter-quality GEW 88.
