One nice thing about those grips is that you can find the luger in a dark room without turning on the lights. The fact that your dad made them, makes them priceless I would think. They are a good conversation piece.

Yes, finding it in the dark is a vital requirement for a "pimpen" Luger. Owners of such Lugers who are still working "in the business" overwhelmingly prefer light grips for that reason, or so I'm told.

:)

Yea, that Luger and those grips will stay in the family. Same with the Izarra. And he picked up a 1934 Beretta in .380 while in Italy just before he was dumped off at Green Beach in the south of France. I believe he had that pistol on his hip when he went ashore. That one's going nowhere as well. I also have his combat knife.

As for finding it in the dark, while I do keep it with four loaded MecGar mags, it's not my go-to gun for HD. Should I ever have to use it, I'd have to be desperate as often you don't get your HD weapon back after you use it. But it's there should I need it.

I have seen the clear grips for many guns used this same way. The story I always hear was that plexiglass from bombers was used. Do you know anything about that being the material?

That's what I've heard as well, though I don't think the sources were necessarily limited to bombers. Really any piece of plexiglass would work as long as it's thick enough. And I would imagine that the flatter it is, the more desirable it would be as it wouldn't need to be flattened. I have no idea what my father's source was, though.

Unfortunately, I never asked my father anything particular about his guns and he never volunteered. And he died very young at 54. Most I know I've had to piece together from history, his military records (and those of his unit), and others who knew him. I do have the certification from the army that the Izarra and Beretta were war trophies. And I have some of the original telegrams between my father and the seller of the Luger (seller was in Missouri). As I can recall, the only things my father told me about the Izarra was that he was afraid to fire it. This was perhaps a prudent call given that so many Spanish pistols of that era were made by sub and sub, sub contractors and quality control was nearly non-existent. It's not unheard of for some to go completely auto upon firing. What my father didn't know is that the one he acquired was made by one of the very best Spanish manufacturers and is actually a decent handgun. I went through it and repaired and bent the magazine back into place and then went through the gun itself, cleaning up some things and making sure it's safe to fire. At the range, it'll only rarely FTF.

He never told me anything about the Beretta but he did tell me that that he was also afraid to fire the Luger as it had a "weak spring". Turns out this wasn't true as I had a few gunsmiths look at it and even had Mike Krause check it out and they all said it's good to take to the range. They were correct.

Too bad my father didn't enjoy shooting more as I would have liked to go out with him to the range. But I understand fully his reluctance. (War experiences.) We went one time, as I recall, to the local National Guard armory to shoot 22's. 'Part of a Boy Scout outing, as I recall.

Still looking for Bring Back Stories, I am about halfway done with Vol IV

As much provenance as possible (story and proof, pictures from back then, story told directly from Vet, etc)