Fraud? & Phony?

[Johnny Peppers]

The sad but true fact is that this is certainly not unique to Lugers, and it is nothing new. While some wring their hands over changing out a mismatched part to a matching numbered part, out and out fakes are being churned out for the eager market. These people do not need dies to restamp existing markings, but to create totally new and rare examples. These are dies to create new chamber markings and all the other markings needed to fabricate a totally new and rare Luger from a common garden variety Luger. That is the reason many doubt the existence of the Spandau Luger. There is simply nothing to prove that it is anything but a fabrication.

Several years ago a new collector brought a super rare Luger to my friend and I to get our opinion. It was a terrible job of faking, but thirty minutes of explaining in detail everything that was wrong just resulted in the "deer in the headlights" look. He just did not have the experience to relate what we were telling him to what he was seeing. Then there was the case where we told someone that the rare Luger he was thinking about buying was not right and showed him why, and he bought it anyway.

Buying a Luger is a lot like taking a test. Do your homework before you enter the classroom. We all have the same tendency to see what we really want to see and not what we are actually looking at.

It is hard to find fault with the manufacturer, as his business is making and selling dies. If he didn't make them someone else would, and probably wouldn't be so open about telling you that he made them. It is the person that uses them to defraud someone else that is at fault.