Adopt a gun
 

Extremely common gun. Unfortunately, 98% of them are "beaters". Adopted an exception, excellent blue with minor rust, matching stock, like-new bore.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/bolo2.jpg

.... and a 98' commercial. A little bit less seen. Excellent blue with minor rust, minty bore (like-new, minty, excellent, very good, good, fair, and poor.
So, the bore is the 2nd grade in my definition). A seller on GB said "finding a old gun with minty bore is like finding a virgin in 80-year-old house." Not really that hard.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/lrh2.jpg

The 3rd one, the final one. Like-new bore. Loving of guns starting from this type when I was five. But something is wrong, in my memory, it's super heavy, but this one is feather weight :)

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/type54right.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/type54left.jpg

I had seen it before, but I had missed it. Interesting enough, it showed up again, so I picked it up. Taking picture under natural light still works better than the "light box" (at least better than my cheap light box).

So called "Standard CH", with minor light rust. Near mint bore.

Alvin

Nice! I like them!

Thanks for posting!

Vern

No problem. Since you like it.... and I like it

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/d_copy1.jpg
http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/a_copy2.jpg
http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/b_copy3.jpg

This is supposed to be one of those "sitting in a drawer for its whole life in the midwest" gun.

Could anyone could tell me which year it's made? even rougly is welcome!

tac, thanks for the info. Regarding the upside down pix, one of my "light box" light falled to the ground and broke. Now I am operating on a single light. The gun was put in upside down position to focus the single light source on the slide, then use Windows to rotate the picture.... but I forgot to rotate this time.

Page 236 of "Central Power Pistols" (Still, 2007) mentioned

About 725,000 1900 Brownings were manufactured by Fabrique Nationale d'Armes deGuerre, in Herstal Belgium from 1900-1914.

The book focused on military guns. I have to find another book to cover commercial Brownings.

The piece came from a gentleman whose grandfather was a U.S. diplomat assigned to England before and during WWI. The gun was bought new in Europe around 1910 and he carried it back. It came with a leather holster of that era, which fits this gun perfectly.

For what it's worth, the book on the 100th anniversary of FN by Francotte/Gaier mentions that the 1900 model was produced until 1931. Too bad that they don't give total production figures.

There is a new book on FN, sponsored by the company, for it's 125th anniversary.

was the price in euro or usd ?

Using the authors' names, I just searched the web and found a Herstal sponsored book "ARS MECHANICA: The Ultimate FN Book". Looks like it's official. Will try to get one. The introduction says the book covers 1889-2007. Hopefully, it's printed in E, "ARS MECHANICA" on the cover looks like French (?)

That's the one.

It has been printed in both an English and a French version. Both have the same title.

Regarding the year it was made, I did a little searching with the references in my hands at this moment.

Page 212 of the book "Handguns of the World" (Ezell, 1981) presents two Modele 1900 pictures, s/n 100,000 and 500,000, both have s/n stamped big on the left side of the frame (unusual). Both were presentation guns to John Browning by the manufactucer. Pistol 100,000 even had the date stamped below the s/n, "4 AOUT 1904". 500,000 had no date on the gun. The text on page 211 says: "By August 1904, 100,000 Modele 1900s had been built, 500,000 by 1909", obviously refered to those two presentation pistols of known provenance.

If above data is accurate, this one was made in 1909. I will celebrate it's 100th birthday very soon :)

====

Another piece of info is also interesting. Page 166 of Volume 1 of "The Machine Gun" (Chinn, 1951) says:

Twelve years from the time the first weapon was produced, the millionth pistol was made. After this fact was engraved on the receiver, the weapon was presented to John M. Browning during the ceremony of the title "Chevalier de l'Ordre de Leopold" by King Albert of Belgium.

Sounds like at least 1,000,000 were made..... no picture of the engraved pistol in the book. With all those numbers, FN's production pattern was very uneven, 1st half a million in 9 years, 2nd half a million in 3 years (isn't 500 pistols per day a very high production volume??)

Use the sold AK and HR money, not counting my shipping cost, just did a 2:1 conversion.... those two were converted to one of these in the picture (actually, the back one, 1% better than the front one). AK price is soaring and Broom's price is dropping these days..... anyway, if I had thought too much, I would not acquired anything.

Finally, adopted a German military gun. All my Parabellums came from forum members, thanks!

For those of you who can tell subtle difference between gun finish.... it's a salt blued bolo made in 1929. Mauser was about to say good bye to baby broom and restore their long barrels.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/picture....&pictureid=388

Movie "Lust Caution" (2008), C96 carried by the guards of Chinese collaborationist government.

Historically, Imperial Japanese Army issued large number of Mausers to Chinese collaborationist government (Japanese supported, 1940-1945). And a few Japanese trading companies were important arm suppliers to Chinese warlords in 1920s. Ironically, Japanese kept inferior Nambu pistols for their own use during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

It's not surprising that Japanese had some C96s. Right side is an original bolo brought back by a US Major from Japan, with mismatched but period correct original "banner" bolo stock.

Tanaka Kakuei was Japanese Prime Minister 1972-1974. During Sino-Japanese War, he served as a political officer in an Imperial army unit stationed in Northern China. In 1944, he "bribed" local communist guerilla leader by giving the latter two brand new C96s as gift in exchange of the guerilla not attacking his men. Not this gun though :)

Birthday gift of 2010.

Alvin,
Crikey (really..no sh*t) where have you been or rather, where are you? Found this post, thimking it wuz frum you most recently and looked at the dates. It wuz frum years ago. I/we miss you. Stay in touch.
pitsword:thumbsup:

I must be missing something....how can you own ANY guns in Beijing??????:confused:

Well, I have legs ..... I can run here and there :)

Tired though. Hope I can have a stable life.

Alvin,

Outstanding collection of Brooms!!!
It is impossible not to love them, as their condition is great!
I also enjoyed the FN1900. I will check Vanderlinden's book "FN Browning Pistols, Side-Arms that Shaped World History " and see if we can narrow the date a little further.

Congratulations,
Douglas

Thanks, Doug. You know I collect these Mausers. Got another antique Large Ring recently..... for unknown reason, I love those Large Rings. Waiting its arriving, hopefully it's a very good one. Will post pictures if it's indeed good.

Alvisn,

I still think that, for unknown reasons, Brooms are underestimated as collectable guns. I mean, its full potential is as big as the Lugers but C96 collecting is still missing something.

And your collection should be something marvellous, as you focus only on pristine examples.

Greetings,

Douglas.

The antique LRH arrives. It looks great, matches GB description: all matching. The bore is good as well.

Doug -- As you can see, this is not pristine. It's a taste. For some reason, postwar guns have many mint instances, but it's not easy to see a pre-1899 one in pristine shape.... ~20 years difference in age..... considering the age of these guns, 20 years delta is not big. So why postwar variations have so many nice samples....

I would bet some people realized C96 could be a collectible in 1920s, so they reserved their newly acquired postwar guns.

Alvin,

I don't see too much wear on this Large Hammer.
Only some "frosting" in the side rails and front sight.
The grips are also in nice condition as far as I can see.
I would be glad to have it in my collection.

Douglas.

I guess this explains why Alvin didn't buy that miniature Borchardt... ;)

Interesting...Ian Hogg & John Weeks' "Pistols Of the World" Revised Edition [1982] says that FN "continued production of the Model 1900 until some time in 1912"...

Alvin - I can scan those two pages, if you wish...

The book "System Mauser" recorded 19 Transitional LRHs on page 56. The lower one was 12325, recorded in that book. The upper one 12496 is not in the book, but "System Mauser" recorded 12490 and 12494, both are very close to the upper one (12496).

12496 lost some blue on left side of the barrel. Otherwise, the general appearance is a little better than 12325.

The story of 12496 was brought back from WWI must be wrong.... considering 12490, 12494, and 12496 were all in the U.S. It supposed to be a commercial gun, probably sold to British, later resold into the states.

Earth to Alvin..over..

Where you at?? I, for one, really miss your input here. Stay in touch please. You did much better when you were in..maybe Iceland or was it Namibia
pitsword

According to the 2008 edition of Anthony Vanderlinden book "FN Browning Pistols, Side-Arms that Shaped World History", Model 1900 was made until 1914. However FN shifted the marketing to the newer "Model 1910" from 1912 on, what led the wrong conclusion that the production of 1900s ended that year.

The production of Model 1900 ended because of the German invasion at the early weeks of WWI. After the war its production was not restarted, and Model 1910 took its place.

Douglas.

Sure. I am focusing on another subject in the past half a year, so I can only visit gun sites occasionally.

Thanks for checking in. Look forward to seeing you back with us soon. Best to you.
Vince:rockon: