This is an excellent example of a late production Model 1908 Mondragon semi-automatic rifle as produced by the SIG factory. This rifle was originally designed by Manuel Mondragon, an officer in the Mexican army. His original design was the Model 1890 and it was the first true semi-automatic rifle to be adopted by any nation. As noted, this is the later refined Model 1908 made in Switzerland by "SIG" at Newhouse as they were one of the few arms makers with the technical capability to manufacture weapons with the tight tolerances required by Mondragon. It is estimated that only 400 of this model were delivered to Mexico before the Mexican revolution broke out with the remaining rifles being retained in Switzerland and eventually all being sold to Germany prior to WWI. These rifles employ some unique features such as: a barrel mounted gas block located approximately 7 inches from the muzzle on underside of the barrel that has two gas settings, a gas driven operating rod that extends from the front of the gas block on the underside of the barrel, to the cocking handle similar system was later used on the FN FAL rifle), a side mounted cocking handle that is attached to a round and rotating bolt. This bolt is very unique in that it has two race-ways machined into the bolt body where the cocking handle fits, which rotates the bolt to lock and unlock the two rows of locking lugs (four at the front and four at the rear of the bolt) during the cycling operation along with an extended box magazine. A very similar bolt and operating system was later adopted on the Schmidt-Rubin and K31 series of rifles. It is fitted with the correct military style tangent rear sight that is graduated from 400-2,000 meters with a inverted "V" front sight with a bayonet lug on the underside of the barrel. The rifle action is unmarked except for the serial number (2325) which is stamped on the left side of the action, top of the bolt, top of the cocking handle and the trigger guard. The stock and handguard are both correctly made from a light colored European straight grained walnut with a flat steel buttplate which is numbered "816" on the lower left side above the magazine.