This was recently posted on Jan Still's Luger Forum.
Julia usually deals with high end items,....and he has an auction business in the U.S. (Not Canada,....a totally different market, with a different kind of clientele.)
Interesting,....nevertheless!
He has an auction coming up shortly and there are a few pieces that prompted his post on Jan's forum.
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10-03-2008, 11:02 PM
auction
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Maine
Posts: 1
Julia Auction's message to group.
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Gentlemen:
My name is James Julia and my auction firm recently has been extremely fortunate in having been chosen by Doug Smith to handle his extraordinary collection of Lugers at auction. Session I will take place this Monday, October 6th. Someone brought my attention to your site and mentioned that a couple of questions had popped up regarding one or more of Doug’s guns.
My auction company consists of various divisions which have specialty auctions. One is rare glass and lamps, one is fine art and furnishings and one of my divisions is rare firearms. My firearms division is the largest of all of my divisions. In fact, in recent years we have been fortunate to have conducted some of the largest grossing firearms auctions ever held in history. Our last one did $12.7, the one before did $11.2, etc.
We produce color illustrated catalogs with detailed photos and descriptions of all of the lots we offer and this same catalog is available for viewing on our website at
www.juliaauctions.com. Honesty and fair descriptions is a goal of our company and it is the sincere intention of myself and my staff to produce accurate descriptions on the various lots that we sell. In fact, we are unique in the gun auction world in that we guarantee our descriptions. All other auctioneers begin their conditions of sale with “as is, where is”. That is not the case with us. If you buy a gun and there is a significant problem with it that has a major affect upon the value and you notify us within 45 days of the auction, we will cancel the sale and refund the money. So not only is our goal to be honest, but were bound by our guarantee to make sure that descriptions are fair and honest. In order to acquire a fair amount of scholarly knowledge in representing any of our goods, we employ a number of consultants to consult with and provide catalog descriptions. My expertise is not in guns or Tiffany lamps, etc., it’s in marketing and promoting of a client’s good. However I utilize people whom I consider to be extremely knowledgeable and also of good moral and ethical character.
Doug’s collection is an extraordinary collection for both rarity and quality. Those few individuals who have been fortunate enough to peruse all or part of his collection will agree with this statement. In addition to having known Doug for many, many years, I have come to realize that he is both extraordinarily knowledgeable about Lugers and also incredibly honest; two factors which I consider extremely important.
We were extremely pleased to acquire Doug’s collection for auction because of the significance of the collection and because we know that for the most part, that the things that he selected and retained in his collection are the some of the finest genuine examples that he’s seen over the period of his lifetime.
Describing antiques and collectibles is a difficult and challenging experience and I have never yet, in all my years, met a person who was perfect and knew everything and was never wrong (I’ve met a couple that thought they were). Consequently, I know that regardless of how great the expertise is that I utilize for cataloging things, there is bound to be a mistake, oversight or problem. To that extent, if there is truly a misrepresentation or a proven mistake and we are notified before the auction, we will make a correction and post it beside the gun on display, note it in the auctioneer’s catalog so it will be announced at the time of sale and in addition, contact every single absentee bidder and phone bidder who is bidding on that lot and notify them of the problem. It’s not a perfect system but it is a sincere attempt at making it as good as possible.
For Doug’s collection of Lugers, the first line of information essentially came from Doug himself. Doug is a walking fountain of knowledge and as we listed the various guns, Doug recited some important particulars about that gun which we made notes of. Later, when the guns were reviewed and descriptions partially prepared by Brad Simpson, also a well known, knowledgeable and I consider, very ethical scholar on Lugers. When these notes were compiled the final descriptions were prepared by Mr. J.R. LaRue, my chief consultant for the firearms division. J.R. has worked with us for many, many years and during that time has appraised and/or cataloged hundreds of thousands of guns.
To date, in reading the various blogs, my staff noted three different guns that were discussed with the possibility of inaccuracies.
• The first is lot 1067: DWM Stoeger American Eagle Luger, August Weiss Parts Gun. One very knowledgeable blogger who has seen the gun notes (in your blog) that the barrel on our gun, numbered 418, was actually the barrel on one of the 125 guns shipped to Stoeger in May of 1930. He indicated that the barrel is 4” long and 7.65 mm caliber. However, this is not so. I’m not sure how the confusion occurred, but the gun is exactly as cataloged in our description. The gun barrel is numbered 418, and it is most definitely caliber 9 mm. In fact, it is stamped on the underside of the barrel, “8.83”. Other than the barrel, nothing else carries a serial number. The gun was made from parts, brought into this country by Weis in the 1930’s, not the 1920’s as in the catalog description. The gun is as stated in our description; both our firm and Doug Smith guarantee this gun to be as represented.
• Lot 1057: Scarce DWM Luger Dated 1912 Identified to Grenadier Regiment with Holster Rig. One blogger questioned the genuineness of this lot. This is absolutely not the case. The gun is genuine; however the cataloger’s did make a mistake in preparing the catalog description here. Doug had given us some information about the two magazines and those notes had been overlooked in the preparation of the catalog. The gun is correct, however both magazines are not. One is the correct type commercial magazine with newly stamped serial number, the second magazine is the correct type body and it has a replaced wood base and a newly stamped serial number. This correction has or will be noted on our website and will be announced at the time of sale, etc. However, the gun is definitely as cataloged, we guarantee it and both our firm and Doug Smith stand behind it 100%. We are sincerely sorry and apologize for the error about the magazines and I am very grateful for someone drawing our attention to that lot.
• The last Lot 1034: Ultra-Rare DWM 1906 Russian Contract Luger. We know there has been, for some time, a great deal of discussion amongst collectors regarding this model and about its markings. Doug Smith contends that the crossed rifles on the top of the chamber are rolled before finished like on a 1906 eagle. This lot is exactly as we have cataloged it and both our firm and Doug Smith guarantee this lot not only in regards to the description we have put forth, but also for the condition.
I hope that my notes here have been helpful and I would also hope that anyone of you that might discover a definite error or misrepresentation about any lot in our catalog would contact us. We would be grateful to hear from you. Our e-mail address is
jjulia@jamesdjulia.com and our phone number is (207) 453-7125. I want to thank you in advance for anyone who might have any future information for us and I also want to thank all of those who pointed out these questions which I have addressed above.
Sincerely,
Jim Julia
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Extracts of two replies to Jim Julia’s post from Jan's Forum.
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Jim Julia
Thanks for your reply. First a brief comment concerning the collectors on this Forum. Among their numbers are World class collector/experts that have exposed fakes and confirmed correct pistols. In some cases, such determinations are limited by the quality of the photographs. A hands on examination is necessary in some cases.
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Jim, I realize that you are an auction / gun guy and not a computer person. Just to be correct, a "blog" is a written continuation by a single person. This is called a forum and people "post" threads and posts in a thread.
Just so you are aware.
Also, many of us are personal friends with Doug, knowing him personally, his reputation is extremely high and his collection is world wide known (within the luger collecting community) and I'd expect comments to be generated on guns in the auction. This is a plus for you, as your reputation is also known in the community and is in my opinion a very favourable one.
Ed
