Possible WW1 - WWII Colt, Luger and S&W values (Photos Added)

[RangeRover]

Personal purchase sidearms

Resuscitatng an old thread based on this portion of an earlier reply.

Regarding private-purchase sidearms...even if worn by a serving officer of the CEF overseas, they would NOT have government acceptance markings?

Smith & Wesson:...As you may be aware, during WWI officers were still expected to provide all of their own uniforms and other kit (including weapons) at personal expense, and such revolvers were accordingly not "issued" - in the case of Canadian officers, the majority of them purchased their handguns from the Canadian Government, from the stocks of Colt pistols and S&W revolvers acquired by the Dept. of Militia & Defence.

 

[GrantR]

Resuscitatng an old thread based on this portion of an earlier reply.

Regarding private-purchase sidearms...even if worn by a serving officer of the CEF overseas, they would NOT have government acceptance markings?

Not as a rule, because they were private property, not government property.

It is important to remember that it was a serious offence to be in unauthorized possession of such government property ... and further that the presence of the uncanceled government markings was prima facie proof of government ownership of the item.

Admittedly many officer's pistols were "bulk purchased" by the government to start with (e.g. the 5,000 Government Model Colts) but they were acquired with the intention of selling most of them to officers. So they were "government property" in the interim, but if they had been formally "accepted into service" and given government property marks (e.g. the Canadian broad arrow) there would then have been a legal requirement to cancel those property marks at the time of sale to the officer - a lot of work and effort for no purpose.

Certainly Canadian-marked examples exist - but those would be ones which remained government property, intended for issue to Other Ranks. I have seen the odd example with government markings which also had an officer's name engraved on them, or some such, but that almost certainly indicates that an officer had to acquire a pistol overseas (either to replace a lost or damaged handgun, or because of promotion to commissioned rank in the field) and must have been permitted to buy one from supplies on hand for issue to Other Ranks.