Luger from WW1 with mags holster lanyard and story of how it got to Canada.

buffdog said:
Quote : "It is interesting that the registration certificate from the CFC does not include the suffix letter that is
part of the serial number on some of these German guns."
!

That is Correct1 I know of one incident where the Police, acting on information that a German handgun was a stolen item, clamped a legitimate gun owner into the cells because they were ignorant of the numbering system where the letter is also part of the serial number. The numbers matched but he had one hell of a time trying to convince them that the suffix letter was different.
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Yup!

This is why when we still had the LGR, I dreaded transferring German WW2 Rifles and handguns, as every time, the transfer "went for review" to the CFO.... :(

All those gangbangers using K98's and Lugers.... ;)
 
My two Lugers - the first and last I bought [1971 and 1988] are now paperweights. DWM 5248c and byf 42 808n.

I have both holsters they came in, one black and one brown, as well as their 'skate keys'.

When they were shooters, I shot them both every chance I could.

tac
 
As anyone knows, to correctly identify any particular German military piece, you need to know the Type, The Make, the Serial Number, the Letter Group and the DATE.

Serial numbers repeated every 10,000 units.

Consider a German rifle, serial number 1234. Made in a big plant, they might run off a couple of rifles numbered 1234 every single month. Even a small plant might do a couple every year.

They had, what, about eight plants turning out the Gew 98 during the late part of World War I? That means at least 8 rifles numbered 1234 every month..... or possibly 100 a year.

I have tried to explain this to various police officers and officials for about 48 of the last 50 years..... and they still think that 1234 is unique. It IS..... if your gun is also a 1917 Gew 98, suffix "a", made by V.C. Schilling.

But they utterly refuse to understand that Mauser, DWM, Steyr and half a dozen other plants were making identical rifles, numbered from 1 to 9999, at the same time..... and each including Number 1234 in each and every letter-coded series in each and every year..... and that you are sitting on Rifle Number 1234 in Group A, Group B, Group C.... and all are 1917 Mausers.... and that you also have a couple of 1234s from DWM, one from Styr, one from Schilling and......

But 1234 makes it UNIQUE.

Jut ask those idiots in Ottawa.

I thank God and Stephen Harper that they got rid of the Registry. When we still had it, I did not own ONE German rifle which was registered so as to prove its status as a unique specimen.

And likly neither did you.
 
A different dimension to this thread.

If you wanted to sell certain guns into the U.S. they would have to have an import marking.
These markings are not a big plus regarding values......the American collectors don't like them on high ticket pieces.

A big European collection is being sold through Julia auction and Simpson is applying import markings as shown below.
Time will tell what the discount value will be because of these markings.

In the case shown below it was a Luger.

David



I don't think that I would consider selling my Lugers in the U.S. for this reason.

No import markings on these Lugers.

 
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MauserMike said:
why?
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His profile mentions he's in the UK, at least I think. The UK banned handguns in 1997, IIRC. If you owned a handgun, I assume you had one of three options: turn it in, get it deactivated, or sell it out of the country.

That rather unsavory history will likely repeat itself here in Canada when we get our next Lieberal government. It's entirely possible there be mass non-compliance, but with registered guns, I doubt it - that's why we have registration, so the government knows where to look when they decide it's time to steal your legally owned property. At least our non-restricted rifles aren't registered anymore. Or, so the government says. But hey, I'm a pretty big pessimist, if you couldn't tell. :)

Anyway, beautiful Lugers. I've always wanted to shoot one, but I'm a victim of government created age discrimination and don't have any of the prohibited classifications on my license. I was three years old in 1995. I've held a few, though. They fit very nicely in the hand and the workmanship on them is something you truly have to see in person to appreciate. Fantastic tools and very special pieces of history.
 
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Andurp I was nearly 35, had owned many 12(3) and 12(6) previously, was away from organized shooting, had sold all my short barrel handguns, and missed the GD 12(X) boat completely. Talk about shooting myself in the foot.

As to Lugers,..the pictures and stories shared here are priceless. A beautiful pistol that will never be matched in asthetics. One of the guys in our club bought a mis-matched, not sure if it was Russian capture at the time back around 1983ish for 249.00. I had no interest at the in German service pistols though I owned a mismatched Walther HP, so I passed up the chance to own a piece of history and probably maintain my 12(6) status while being asleep at the wheel so to speak. A Luger may be in my future yet,.. but with the 106mm barrel jobs which absolutely make me very numb and the prices, I think a nice M-1 Garand will take precedence for a while yet.

I still can't believe how many Lugers made it back to Canada and the US through serviceman. One I can recollect being told was by a West Nova Scotia Regiment(1st Divison 'Red Patch) vet, though I believe he only went overseas late and was in NW Europe with the regiment,.. I worked with a DND in the early 80s. He brought it back, was warned outside HFX harbour about having German weapons, but decided to risk it and got through. He said it was fine till fall of '46 when he was rooming on Windsor street and had to give it to the landlord for a months rent.

Anyone who has watched the Band of Brothers series, and saw what happened to the young 101st paratrooper and his beloved Luger, shows why servicemen where discouraged from Battle field pick ups and how dangerous they can be without training on enemy weapons.
 
ddorgan said:
Hi. I have aquired a Luger pistol that came to Canada with a cavalry man from Manitoba after he was on cleanup duty after WW1. This gun is in very nice condition, has two matching mags. a holster and lanyard, and there are other goodies with it that don't match. One is a snail drum mag. There is also a mag. that the # doesn't match. I am looking to have these appraised and may sell them. If someone knows who to contact or are quallified to appraise these please PM me. I'll post some pictures soon so everyone can have a look. They are very nice!!
Thanks. Dean
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Gobles in London has 4 prohib Lugers. $1100. Now, can you get a restricted barrel put on it?
 
smellie said:
@ TWOSTEAM:

Thanks for helping out, Janice! I have tried and tried, but Photobucket does NOT like my computer. It's just as if it were Magick, except that my Spell-check program doesn't even help!

As to the Lugers, guys, I bought my first one, the battered 1918, from a local RCMP Officer while I was still in high-school, so I have had it 50 years now. Took 10 minutes to register and I carried it home in my pocket. Paid $20 for it, which was most of a week's pay, then another $17.50 to replace the parts which were missing (it had been strippd). My Dad found out about it and blew his top completely, screamed at me, "This is your Mother said you could have this. She'd let you have a g*d-damned German MACHINE-GUN if you wanted one!" And he stomped out, but left the gun; Dad had a lot of respect for personal private property. About a month later, Dad did another inspection on my room and discovered a round black thing looking at him from about 27 inches off the floor. He picked it up as if it were a dead rat and said, "Allright, what's THIS?" and I had to answer honestly, "Uh, that's a German machine-gun, Dad." (It belonged to one of HIS friends, had been given to me to discover why it didn't want to work. Kinked mainspring housing on an MP-40 will do it every time.) Dad looked at the MP and asked, "How does it work?".... to which I replied, "Real good!" Couple of nights after that, he told me to bring him the Luger and show him how to strip it.... so I did. He asked why the trigger was so damned hard to pull (it was about 35 pounds) and I said that I didn't know and that gunsmiths didn't like working on them because they were too finely made. So Dad analysed how the trigger mech worked, got out his snips, tiny files, little bar of tin solder and a little piece of hard copper plate and got to work. I watched as he built up the hand on the bell-crank lever which actually pushes the Sear. Just once, almost under his breath, I heard him mutter something. It was "Christ, this thing's crude!" and right then was when I began understanding what being an Air Force INSTRUMENT MAKER was all about! He slapped the Luger back together and it works beautifully, proper 2-stage trigger pull and all, just like it was 1918 all over again. I have fired any number of rounds through it in the past 50 years and it always works fine..... and it still has that tiny copper plate on the bell-crank hand. Thanks, Dad!

The holster it lives in is marked inside as the property of Wilhelm Hartmann, who was a Captain in the Imperial German Army. Funny story there; I was going out with a girl named Hartmann at the time and she told me that her Grandpa was in an Army at one time, so I asked which one. She didn't know. And she didn't think her Grandfather had an accent - he just talked like her Grandpa. MY Grandfather didn't have an accent, either - but he talked exactly like half the County of Kent! Her "Grandpa Bill" had moved into a smaller apartment recently and had got rid of some of his old junk...... and I had bought his holster for 75 cents in a Vancouver second-hand shop! So my first Luger lives in Captain Hartmann's holster to this day.

The 1916 turned up at Sidney I. Robinson for $200, 18 or 19 years ago. I bought it and went through a month of Gummint BS before I could go back and pick it up (It's only a 600-klick round trip, you know!). When I picked it up, the counter guy said, "Just a minute; there's a holster for it and some ammo." So I waited and along came that gun's original holster, WITH a spare WWI mag AND a little cloth bag containing a mixture of Sten Gun rounds, black-ball MP-40 stuff...... and Fiocchi-made Model 38 rounds for the Beretta SMG, so we have an idea where it has been. Interesting thing is that, despite the brand-new condition, this gun is NOT matching. The entire upper has been changed as an assembly, and this was done when the gun was NEW. I have a whole Raisin Pie that says that this was done in the Army in 1916, when two good friends sat down and cleaned their guns together..... and traded uppers as a gesture of friendship. Sounds romantic? Yes. But gestures such as that, however romantic and silly to us today, would have made perfect sense in the Germany of the Kaiserzeit. So I have what is likely the PRETTIEST mismatch in existence! This is the one I took to the shoot here.... for anyone to try a Luger.

The 1938 was purchased at the closing-out auction of a Brandon gun shop. I live 3 houses from the RCMP station, so I thought that I could buy the thing and shoot a match with it in 3 weeks' time. Hah! Getting this one registered took FOUR YEARS AND EIGHT MONTHS and cost me more in storage than I paid for the damned gun! It is a mismatched Mauser, as anyone can see, and it has the crossed-Moisins stamping which indicates that it was captured and re-issued by the Russians. It has been shot a LOT; the rifling is very weak and it was fouled terribly. Every time it is cleaned, out comes another layer of fouling. Who knows? There MIGHT even be a half-decent bore in there! Time will tell.

The P-38 is a local Vet bring-back from the Second War.

Talk about war crimes all you like, but the one thing I will NOT forgive the Nazis for is taking the Luger out of production! The P-38 is very slick and very modern (this one is a 1944 V-block Mauser) and it works flawlessly.... but it does not have that indefinable ELEGANCE of Georg Luger's creation.

So that's my Lugers.

Enjoy!
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New ones were recently made and sold for some $15,000 each. None left.
 
Andurp said:
His profile mentions he's in the UK, at least I think. The UK banned handguns in 1997, IIRC. If you owned a handgun, I assume you had one of three options: turn it in, get it deactivated, or sell it out of the country.

That rather unsavory history will likely repeat itself here in Canada when we get our next Lieberal government. It's entirely possible there be mass non-compliance, but with registered guns, I doubt it - that's why we have registration, so the government knows where to look when they decide it's time to steal your legally owned property. At least our non-restricted rifles aren't registered anymore. Or, so the government says. But hey, I'm a pretty big pessimist, if you couldn't tell. :)

Anyway, beautiful Lugers. I've always wanted to shoot one, but I'm a victim of government created age discrimination and don't have any of the prohibited classifications on my license. I was three years old in 1995. I've held a few, though. They fit very nicely in the hand and the workmanship on them is something you truly have to see in person to appreciate. Fantastic tools and very special pieces of history.
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You can own one if you can get a restricted barrel, and have a prohib converted.
 
RememberTheSomme said:
Andurp I was nearly 35, had owned many 12(3) and 12(6) previously, was away from organized shooting, had sold all my short barrel handguns, and missed the GD 12(X) boat completely. Talk about shooting myself in the foot.

As to Lugers,..the pictures and stories shared here are priceless. A beautiful pistol that will never be matched in asthetics. One of the guys in our club bought a mis-matched, not sure if it was Russian capture at the time back around 1983ish for 249.00. I had no interest at the in German service pistols though I owned a mismatched Walther HP, so I passed up the chance to own a piece of history and probably maintain my 12(6) status while being asleep at the wheel so to speak. A Luger may be in my future yet,.. but with the 106mm barrel jobs which absolutely make me very numb and the prices, I think a nice M-1 Garand will take precedence for a while yet.

I still can't believe how many Lugers made it back to Canada and the US through serviceman. One I can recollect being told was by a West Nova Scotia Regiment(1st Divison 'Red Patch) vet, though I believe he only went overseas late and was in NW Europe with the regiment,.. I worked with a DND in the early 80s. He brought it back, was warned outside HFX harbour about having German weapons, but decided to risk it and got through. He said it was fine till fall of '46 when he was rooming on Windsor street and had to give it to the landlord for a months rent.

Anyone who has watched the Band of Brothers series, and saw what happened to the young 101st paratrooper and his beloved Luger, shows why servicemen where discouraged from Battle field pick ups and how dangerous they can be without training on enemy weapons.
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Pretty stupid keeping it loaded, one in the pipe. You an easily tell if a Luger has one in the pipe, the extractor is raised.
 
Andurp said:
His profile mentions he's in the UK, at least I think. The UK banned handguns in 1997, IIRC. If you owned a handgun, I assume you had one of three options: turn it in, get it deactivated, or sell it out of the country.

That rather unsavory history will likely repeat itself here in Canada when we get our next Lieberal government. It's entirely possible there be mass non-compliance, but with registered guns, I doubt it - that's why we have registration, so the government knows where to look when they decide it's time to steal your legally owned property. At least our non-restricted rifles aren't registered anymore. Or, so the government says. But hey, I'm a pretty big pessimist, if you couldn't tell. :)

Anyway, beautiful Lugers. I've always wanted to shoot one, but I'm a victim of government created age discrimination and don't have any of the prohibited classifications on my license. I was three years old in 1995. I've held a few, though. They fit very nicely in the hand and the workmanship on them is something you truly have to see in person to appreciate. Fantastic tools and very special pieces of history.
Click to expand...

Basically cartridge-firing handguns handguns were made prohibited firearms in England, Scotland and Wales in 1997, after a pedophile slaughtered sixteen 1st grade children and their teacher in Dunblane Scotland. Northern Ireland, also part of the UK, has its own legislative assembly, and told the Westminster gubmint to go pound sand, so thay can still have any kind of handgun there. Here on the mainland, there are two additional types of handgun license - one allows you to have a prohibited firearm, but no ammunition, the other, to own it and shoot it, at one of seven selected centres in England [not wales or Scotland] under supervision. This is NOT target shooting per se, but 'shooting carried out in the interest of intellectual discourse' - a load of total sh*te, IMO. Having commanded troops in anger, there is no way that I'm going to demean myself by joining in with such a farce.

I have two BP revolvers, and a Ruger Super Redhawk long-barrelled revolver and fifteen rifles, so I'm not entirely devoid of shooting.

tac

PS - my two Lugers were sold last week for $3800.
 
It's nice to see pics and read stories about P-08's with a proven or known provenance. In the past, I was always amazed that so many P-08's had been "taken from a high ranking Nazi Officer", usually SS, with no specifics.
I asked my late German father-in-law about the "Luger" pistols once and he was baffled. He had no idea who Georg Luger was. He'd been a piano tuner before the war. I showed him a picture and he smiled, saying, "Ach, P-08 (pronounced pay nuhl ocht), ein schoenste pistole!", or words to that effect.

BTW- he didn't come back from Siberia until 1951. Some came back even later. He was repatriated 'early' as he had contracted tuberculosis and the Russians wanted to get rid of him.
 
JRW (QOR) said:
Gobles in London has 4 prohib Lugers. $1100. Now, can you get a restricted barrel put on it?
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Yes you mail it to a gunsmith that can make a barrel they put it on change the class of the firearm it can never go back to it's 12.6 then you transfer the firearm and done you got a restricted luger. I know Dlask Arms can do it he has done more then 1 luger pistol before and he has done several firearms for me as well like a SW 2214 that has a 4.2 inch barrel on it now. I bought it from a gun nut here who shipped it to the gunsmith who changed the firearm and now I own it not bad 12-6 firearms are cheap and if you know someone that can rebarrel them they make a cheap restricted firearm over buying new for the cost of the barrel and the firearm it self it's a little less then a new pistol.

 
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