Owen Sub-machine Gun

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by Neil Ashley
Over the last 15 years large numbers of Vickers and Bren Machine Guns have been released on to the collectors market by the Australian goverment.

Is there a reason why no Owen Sub-machine have been released? Have they all been cut up or will they one day be released.

Note that they weren't "Released on to the collector market", rather they were sold en mass to arms dealers, who then discovered that there was a significant UK market for deactivated WW2 weapons. Some of the Vickers and Brens were actually sold to the UK DOD. All of these were held as reserve stock at 21 Supply Battalion at Moorebank, and were finally declared of no further use in the early 90's.
The Owen was designed in the middle of WW2 and saw service in New Guinea and the Islands, and later in Korea and Vietnam. It was replaced by the F1 SMG in the 60's and was declared obsolecent with stocks disposed of in the 70's. At that time there was no international purchaser, so most were destroyed. I don't know of any F1's in collections yet, so perhaps they are still in storage?
However, some Owen's managed to escape and are in private collections: