Family heirloom 1935 nazi marked hi power

Give it a careful check over before shooting it - look for porosity or cracks at the front of the slide and at the locking surfaces. Also remember most Belgians were not fans of the Nazis, or the forced labour campaign they were working under - QC was deliberately spotty on some Belgian Nazi HP's.
 
^^^ You're right but I'm not sure how the OP would know it's a 1935? The marks are pretty hard to decode from what I know. Some of the guys on the Hi Power owners forum are good at dating the pre war guns to within a few months or to a specific contract it but the info isn't readily available online as far as I know.

Maybe the OP just meant it was a GP35 when he said 1935? Isn't that the Belgian name for the Hi-Power (Grand Puissance is French for Hi-Power plus "35" for the year it first came out)
 
Quite honestly I'm not entirely certain myself, I'm kind of just parroting what the CFO has told me as well as my relatives who helped with giving me information. I'll upload and take more pictures soon! It certainly seems like a rough piece for a 1935 from what I understand
 
If it is an actual first year of production pre-war gun made in 1935 it would be worth more than a wartime production. If memory serves me there were only something like 69,000 or so Hi-Powers made before 1940 while the number made by FN under German occupation was 330,000+. Most of the Belgian army surrendered in place in 1940 so I can't imagine it would be unusual to see captured stocks of weapons repurposed (and marked with waffenamps) by the Nazi's.

Not sure how a CFO would know anything about the year....don't they just record maker,caliber,serial # and barrel length?
 
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Allaemer245 said:
Quite honestly I'm not entirely certain myself, I'm kind of just parroting what the CFO has told me as well as my relatives who helped with giving me information. I'll upload and take more pictures soon! It certainly seems like a rough piece for a 1935 from what I understand
Click to expand...

I agree...the rough quality of the finish looks more like wartime production to me.
 
Hi. It's a Model 1935 Browning High Power. Not likely to have been made in 1935. Your pistol does not have a war time finish. Sadly, the original blued finish is completely gone. However, Nazi marked BHP's(made by slave labour, who supposedly got even by sabotaging the stuff they made. Failing to heat treat, etc. Never heard of one blowing up though. Mind you, most owners of Nazi BHP's don't shoot 'em.) are still collector pieces. If you do anything to it, other than clean it, you'll drop the value. Taking the rust off with 0000 steel wool and oil is ok. Refinishing or changing the sights, is not.
Dry firing won't bother it and parts can and will wear out(easy to find and not stupidly expensive.). On your's, the only part that really matters is the frame.
 
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