German Double Shot Signal Pistol

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Echelon

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Hey everyone,
Not sure if this is the right area for this but I've consulted CGN in the past to some very favourable results and extremely intelligent responses.

Anyways, this is one of those beautiful accidents you hear about... Friends go up to the family's old uninhabited farm to escape for the weekend and find a little piece of history hidden away. They messaged me some pics from an iPhone.
From what I can gather it's a 27mm Walther 'Doppel Schuss' no. 912/N440 Signal Pistol, manufactured 1939 - probably for the Kriegsmarine. I'll include the pictures sent to me below.

I'm looking for confirmation/insight/any other information you have on the piece, or at the very least perhaps someone could point me to someone that might know more. I told them to baby the damn thing and let me poke around to figure out more :p Thanks in advance.


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That is a find and a half! Shotgun news had an article about German flare pistols of WW II, I'll maybe see if I can find the article as I am sure they mentioned the rarer double barrelled versions in it.
 
OK, rooted through my back issues of SGN a\nd found the article. It was in the 8th annual treasury copy where they reprint articles, origionally printed in the Feb '07 SGN.

Article was by Peter Kokalis, mainly history, nothing on current market values. My comments are in brackets.

"The german Wehrmacht also fielded two double barrel signal pistols during WW II. The Model SLd was designed and manufactured by Carl Walther. Production commenced in 1936 and lasted until the end of the war. It was used exclusively by the German Navy and was produced in both stainless steel and aluminum alloy versions (can't really tell from the pics which yours is, and he doesn't say which is the rarer of the 2 either). The barrels were 9.055 inches/230mm in length and the weight was 5.73 pounds/2.6kg, empty, in stainless steel (so you ought to be able to chuck it on a scale and see if it is stainless or aluminum if you can't figure it out some other way).

The barrel release lever was in front of the trigger guard (can't see it in your pics and he didn't have any pictures of the SLd in his article, just single barrel versions used by the Army). The barrels could be discharged individually or simultaneously. Both the grip panels and an odd forearm were made of wood."

He goes on to say that the other double barrelled flare pistol was more common and used by the Luftwaffe. So I'd say for sure this is a find and a half and then some. Double barreled flare pistols were rare to begin with, the navy version sounds rarer than the air force version, and presumeably the stainless steel ones would be rarer than the aluminum, or vice versa.

He also says in the article that not many holsters for these things survived the war, as the soldiers would chuck away the holsters and just jam the flare pistol whereever. Not sure if the German Navy would have had a holster for this thing, but if it is there along with the flare pistol then it will be worth even more.

Hope this helps. It's not often I get to help out with these obscure milsurp questions!
 
Is that double barreled as well?

If it is, that would be the other double barrelled version used by the Luftwaffe and some panzer units, the "more prevelant Doppellauflige Fliegerleuchpistole Modell L".

Sure looks a lot like the pictures in the article, he had a few pictures of that one but no pictures of the navy version like the OP has. Some minor differences here and there between AWOL's flare gun and the pictures in the SGN article, probably because of year of manufacture or something but I am just guessing here.
 
So I asked them to estimate weight (no scale up there) and the rough guess is 8 pounds.... Probably quite a bit off, but the alloy models are always under 3, so I thought that was a pretty clear sign.
Suggested the magnet test and apparently they're attracted to it "like a mother####er". Appears to be stainless.

Now as if that weren't interesting enough apparently they found some knives with naval markings as well... I haven't got any pics sent through yet but I can't help but get a little excited about the prospect of more of this stuff
 
Echelon said:
So I asked them to estimate weight (no scale up there) and the rough guess is 8 pounds.... Probably quite a bit off, but the alloy models are always under 3, so I thought that was a pretty clear sign.
Suggested the magnet test and apparently they're attracted to it "like a m****rf****r". Appears to be stainless.

Now as if that weren't interesting enough apparently they found some knives with naval markings as well... I haven't got any pics sent through yet but I can't help but get a little excited about the prospect of more of this stuff
Click to expand...

Incredible find! I wish it was me! :D
 
For those of you with interest in the blade, it's a Kriegsmarine Officer's Dagger as well... the blade's not in great shape, but I'm looking into it as well. Very cool.

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Sweeeet.

Maybe it will get even better, and they will find some documentation that ties both items directly to Gunther Prien or Erich Topp or some such.
 
a month ago there was a post in this forum about one of these that had been deactivated and was for sale on a british auction site. can't seem to find it but that may give you a idea on price
 
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