Fakes and Newbie's

[lugerholsterrepair]

Another problem occurs to me. Ted, What if the pistol you refinished and marked was worked over again without your knowledge and what we know to be excellent work, is then a piece of crap. Then your mark says you did it. While I appreciate the effort and thought Bill M has put into this I have given it some thought myself due to the work that I do. Bill mentions the legal aspect of it all and yes I suppose if you were a large business or corporation with many items to protect it would be worth it to go to this type of legal protection. The collector who wants to protect the provenance of a particular weapon is at the mercy of those who detect his mark and replicate it and are not worrying about being sued by a collector who has two dozen Luger pistols. Another thing, the value of a Luger would not be inhanced by marking it in any permanent way. Bill, I am as interested as the next guy to discuss and eventually find an answer to this very serious threat to the hobby we all hold dear to our hearts. Talking about it will eventually lead us to an answer. I hope before it has gone too far. I have been nervous for years and have even seen one of my luger lanyards in an auction catalog. After it leaves my hands there is really no way to determine what it is without serious inspection and perhaps forensic testing. One of the reasons I have never marked say, artillery boots, is because a collector who wants the boot to complete an original artillery rig would be ticked to see my moniker all over it. Am I wrong? I don't really know and time will tell. Jerry B.