Restoration/Restamping Question.

Currently, there is a large collection of lugers that will gradually appear in the market from a decades long luger collector in Colorado. He has some of the rarest and most interesting lugers you will ever see. His asking prices on many of the more common ones are not unreasonable except for one small problem. He has a habit of "freshening up" a gun for sale. He especially likes to add back some straw color to the straw parts. Fortunately, he over polishes the parts and they look like cheap jewelry--it is fairly easy to tell the refinishing. Looking over his inventory is an opportunity to learn the difference between original finish and refinished. Many grips are not original, also.


If you can find one that wasn't freshened up, you can get a good piece at a fair price, but otherwise look out.


The point is that this is a serious problem and it costs some folks big bucks lost to non-original pieces. There is no reason to be upset when someone points out the potential harm that can be done from recreating (there is no such thing as restoring) a luger. Try not to be too sensitive to honest and important information contributed by experienced collectors. Save the upset for the unscrupulous.


dm