Paul Mauser Private Archive
 

Dear Fellows,
Around one year and half ago, I had the opportunity of buying in Oberndorf part of the personal archive of Paul Mauser.
The archive is composed by different types of documents, diaries, letters, telegram, blueprints, contracts...
These documents are unique and irreplaceable; reading and analysing them is a great honour and a fascinating experience.
With Gerben we started an in-deep analysis of all the documents finalised to the publication of a book about all this material.
Most of the archive is today digitalized and properly organized.
Gerben did and is doing an incredible work, reading and interpreting the old German and the handwritten calligraphy of Paul Mauser.
We are now collaborating with institutions (Waffen Museum in Oberndorf) and collectors in Germany that have others parts of the archive to share as much as we can the information from the different parts, reconstituting the entire set...
After more than one year of analysis of the documents we have prepared a web site that is summarizing the results achieved and the techniques used to manage this material:
www.paul-mauser-archive.com
The web site is today providing some documents from my archive. The amount of documents prevents the possibility of using a web site to publish the entire material. However it is a nice tool to demonstrate the potential of this study.
The web site will be updated with additional parts from the Waffen Museum and others collectors when they will become available, possibly next year.


Attachment 22186

We are happy sharing this archive with all the fellow collectors.
I hope you appreciate the effort.
I would like to thanks Edward Tinker and Giuliano Alfinito that check the web site consistency and help a lot with the translation.
Enjoy.
Mauro & Gerben

Thank you for the link!

Will you be posting any of his blueprints???

The blueprints are difficult to scan, because of their size. Most of them are blueprints of production machines, like lathes and milling machines, dating from around 1890-1895.

What it is interesting is the availability of all the complete set of patent until 1908.
For his 70th birthday, Paul Mauser received from Mr. Korn, engineer, personal friend and patent attorney of Paul Mauser and from Mr. Theodor Schmid a 400-page book containing all his (Paul Mauser) patents. This book has been printed out in a few copies for the Mauser management as well and it is in the Paul Mauser private archive together with some others nice booklets (see “special document” in the web site) and certificates for his birthday.

All these patents are associated with great drawings of all the details.

Additionally, the cross checking between his letters and contracts with the Mauser Company inventory and sales books (today in the Jon Speed collection) allows the possibility of checking if a contract was really fulfilled or not. I mean, it is not always true that what was foreseen in the contract was actually shipped by the Company.

For example, just recently (three days ago) we discovered that the Persian C96 contract was only partially fulfilled. The history of this specific contract needs to be rewritten or at least revised highlighting the discrepancies between the contract and the actual production shipped and kept in Mauser.

What it is really great is that there is an agreement between the different entities (Museum and historians/collectors) to share all the information and clarify and rebuild the entire archive that today is spread at least in three/four parts.

We have to expect nice discovers, but for sure, there is a bunch of work to be performed.


Mauro

Paul Mauser web site updated
 

Hello Fellows,
The Paul Mauser archive web site has been updated.
In the last period the researches have been focused on the C96 early contracts with new interesting finds.

The first article about the C96 Persian contract will be available in USA in April: Gun & Sword Collector magazine - Volume 34, #3.

In Italy is available since the beginning of March (Armi & Tiro) and in Germany will be available in May (RWM Depesche).

The Paul Mauser Archive web site contains one more gallery focused on weapons, for now only with C96 but will be populated with more guns in accordance to the status of the researches.

http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/c96%20gallery.htm

Please note the important amount of rare documents.

and a new menu related to magazines and articles where you can find information about the status of the articles (researches) and the publication schedule.

http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/articles.htm

http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/a...20overview.htm

I hope you find this interesting.

Cheers,
Mauro & Gerben

Mauro & Gerben, the sophistication of your web site continues to amaze me.

:cheers:

mauro,

is your website just a marketing/promotional tool or actual archive where we are going to be able to access all those info one day in the near or distant future? So far only access is to the teasers in various categories you promise to provide. Blue prints, patents etc...

SIGP2101

Well, I wouldn't call it marketing, as there is nothing for sale.

But the website serves more as a showcase, indicating the type of material available and the way we intend to go (which basically is preservation, digitization, analysis and translation).

The amount of info to be analyzed is quite large, and we are doing all this work in our spare time, so don't expect the complete digital version of the archive, with bells and whistles, to be available in the near future :)

Bravo!

...Does that mean it will be available in the far future??? :D

In all seriousness, I know the feeling...There are just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything that needs doing, much less things that we enjoy doing...

And it seems that every time I look for an answer to a problem, ten other problems arise... :mad:

I don't expect to see your Archive results in my lifetime, but I wish you luck in your efforts!!! :thumbup:

That said, a first analysis of part of the data, surrounding the C96 Persian Contract, has been published and will appear in the next edition of 'Man at Arms - for the Gun and Sword collector'. (volume 32, No. 3, June 2012).

Dear Fellows,
Let me add some points to what Gerben has already explained.
The Paul Mauser archive contains quite a big amount of data covering different areas as described in the web site.
We are proceeding in the analysis of the documents with two main projects: short term (articles) and long term (books). Additionally in July we will shoot a documentary for the television about the Paul Mauser life but we will provide more information about this project soon.
When new unpublished finds are discovered we discuss if we can simply publish them in an article or they will be part of a book.
For the C96 information, all the new data will be published in articles; in fact books are already available and what we plan to do is clarifying the early contracts with new unpublished information. This is what happens with the C96 Persian contract; these new finds are now available in an article published in USA, Italy and Germany. The article in USA is available since only a few days.
We have also quite a big amount of data about the production of the Mauser pistol model 1910. For this material, that it is fully unpublished, we are thinking about a book. In fact, the material is too big for one or more articles. Considering also the fact that until now there are no books focused on this production... in any case we are still deciding about this specific point.

Here some extract of the C96 Persian article.
The cover of the magazine:
Attachment 25862
The first page of the article:
Attachment 25863



Really nice new data have been found about the Italian C96 contract and in general the early contract. The Italian C96 contract will be available in October/November timeframe.
The photo below summarizes quite well the documents analysed...
Attachment 25864
A short description of the photo.
Starting from the background:
1) The business card of Mister Felice Grondona found in one of the Paul Mauser diary. Felice Grondona was the Italian importer of the Mauser pistols and rifles and also friend of Paul Mauser. Mr. Grondona was located in Milan and he has a crucial role in the contract management with the Italian Authorities. Paul Mauser wrote on the business card also an address; you can easily see it.
2) One of the Paul Mauser diaries where Mauser wrote about a meeting with Felice Grondona for the contract definition. You can see the Paul Mauser note written in black close to the grip of the flat side.
3) One of the letters available between the Italian MOD and Mauser for the contract definition. This letter is from the Italian Navy department to the Mauser company. You can notice when the letter has been posted in Italy (22 September 1908) and when has been processed in Mauser (30 September 1908).
Several letters are available and we can now describe not only the contract itself but also the logistic and the pistol maintenance based on the spare parts request.
4) An early flat side pistol from the original glass plates photos available in the archive. The Mauser Company had a huge glass plate’s photographical archive till the end of WWII containing a huge amount of photos. Some of these glass plates, altough really fragile (glass!!), survived until now and we are in the process of digitalizing them. It is not easy to do with the modern techniques :) but the quality of the result is amazing.
This is one of the first digitalization results of these glass plates’ photos. The analysis of the glass plated is really fascinating and this specific study should be definitely covered by an article.

Mauro & Vlim, I received my copy today. Read it carefully. Thanks a lot for the excellent article!

Regarding 9mm with 1000m sight leaf addressed in the article, could it be 9x25 Export caliber?? We have never seen a valid 9x19 "Red 9" coming with 1000m sight leaf. If Mauser did make some 9x19 with 1000m sight leaf, statistically, we should see one or two survivors on the market, but we have not yet. One 9x25 listed on checkpointcharlies.com has Mongonia provenance, which was most likely sold there in 1920s.

Alvin,
Happy that you appreciate the article.
I will double check this point in the documents and I let you know... note that Mauser started writing the sight graduation in the productions/sales records from 1927 on.

On page 241 of "Mauser Archive", 1927 inventory list shows 8 instances of "7,63 Cal 9m/m 1000". Since they are rare enough, that would explain why we have not seen them. But the possibility of being 9x25 still exists.

Other 7,63 entries must be Bolo Mausers, came with either 500 or 1000 sight leaves, as we commonly met today.

Is this the 7.63mm Mauser case with no bottleneck???

I would think so. The appearance is just like that.

IIRC, we had a thread here a year or so ago with a link to a '9mm Mauser' discussing the straight-wall 9mm Mauser C96 cartridge (based on the 7.63mm cartridge) & pistol...I can't find it now, but it must have been interesting... :D

Wiki mentions it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9725mm_Mauser

Textbook of Automatic Pistols by R.K. Wilson, published in 1943 and I think it was republished again later on has some info about the 9mm Mauser. I believe most of that data was collected in the 30's. The book mentions D.W.M. as producing the cartridge for a brief time. The info may be old and out of date but it makes mention of a Submachine gun at the time in 1934 not yet produced but for a few examples called the Neuhausen that will be chambered in 9mm Mauser along with other calibers.

Here you go:

Thank You! :thumbup:

I don't suppose you'd open it up and show us one??? No, I suppose not... :rolleyes: ;) :p

This may help :)

Hello all,
As described in the article, Mauser started writing the sight graduation from 1927 on.
Alvin, you found the good example in the great Jon Speed book and maybe you like see the original...

Attachment 25930

What it is interesting analysing the inventory and sales records is the amount of "special" configuration Mauser was doing following the request of dealers and clients.

You can notice in this list is 33 Engraved examples and one Super interesting example that says with Extra MAGAZINE !!

Could the word magazine in this context actually mean extra magazine spring, abbreviated to magazine ??

Just a guesstimation. But only in this way, it would make sense to me. Removable magazine on C96 had lots of design implications.....

Dear Alvin,
Hard to say.
Mauser made tests with pistol with removable magazine but ...
As you can notice the analysis and correct interpretation of the documents it is not always easy.
It takes time and sometimes needs the correlation of different documents (technical notes, blue prints, photos of the period...).
Sometimes we found notes in the Paul Mauser diaries referring to specific tests performed to validate a technical solution...

If the spring was discussed, there would be a reference to a Magazinfeder. Since this was recorded somewhere around 1927, and the M1930 didn't follow that much later, I'm pretty sure it refers to the box magazine version of the C96 pistol.

You may also find the references to 'Holzgriffschalen' (wooden grips) and 'Hartgummi' (hard rubber) interesting :)

The top of the page is marked 'Diverse' or 'Miscellaneous'.

Gerben, I am curious...Do you know who originated the 9mm bullet for automatic pistols??? Was it Mauser, Luger or some other entity??? Who came out with a 9mm first??? :confused:

9x19 was DWM 480, 9x25 was DWM 487. Smaller number should come first.

I thought extra magazine again while having dinner..... You are probably right. On inventory list, it's a separate entry, that must refer to something significant (a separate entry for an extra spring? highly unlikely). Most likely, an experimental Broomhandle with removable magazine, in 1927.

About the development of the 7.63 Mauser, 7.63 Borchardt, 9x19 and 9x25 you can probably write an entire book.

Basically, the Paul Mauser notes show that he himself was constantly in touch with developers at RWS, Rottweil and DWM Karlsruhe about the development of new, and experimental, cartridges and the powders needed to propel them. Of course, Max Duttenhofer, of the Rottweiler Pulverfabriken, was one of his main financers (and he had a thing or two to say at DWM, Loewe and RWS), so development wise it was one big family.

This is why I take the 'Mauser stole the Borchardt-design' story with a large pinch of salt, the communication between the companies involved was simply too efficient. Luger and Mauser faced the same problem, and came up with the same solution (probably suggested by a DWM ballistics expert). Removing the neck of their cartridges and coming up with a design that would not interfere with the safety of the barrels when rebored to 9mm.

I'm pretty sure that the real designer of the 9mm rounds was a DWM Karlsruhe engineer, not Luger or Mauser themselves.

Vlim, was DWM 403a for Borchardt (as mentioned on page 335 of "Mauser Pistolen"), or for Mauser Carbine C96 ?

In the DWM catalogs, 403 is mentioned in combination with Mauser pistols, so I guess the latter.

Thanks. Any info on Borchardt cartridge's DWM # ? I could not find it anywhere..... Could it be same as Mauser Carbine?

I don't think so. I think that initially the standard 403 was used in both the Borchardt and the Mauser C96. It is difficult to distinguish between one or the other without the available packaging. To make things worse, the earliest rounds didn't have the case number on them, just a mere 'D.M. K' (Deutsche Metallpatronefabrik Karlsruhe).

The one on the left is such an early cartridge, it predates 1900, compared to a later 403 round.

Oh man, I could kill for a box like this one...
These rounds are so rare down here.

Interesting to note the lacking of examples of 9mm Mauser cartridges and guns in my area of the world in spite of most books written keep the theory that they were developed to be marketed in South America and other "exotic" markets.

Douglas.

Very rare. Full box 9x25 (two rounds on two clips, sealed) is listed for sale, but it's a C96 price.

A major cartridge collection is listed on collectorfirearms.org

His prices are a bit steep, but he has nice items for sale.

I paid about as much for the box of 9mm Mauser rounds as he is asking for a single round :)

Here are some scans of different head stamps:

IX | 19 | 35 | Eagle (Hirtenberger, Austria)
2 - 41 - dnh - * (RWS, Germany)
5 - 40 - P635 - * (from the box shown earlier, Hirtenberger, Austria)

Glass plate's archive
 

Dear Friends,
I would like introducing another interesting category of documents from the Paul Mauser archive: the glass plates.

If you have the opportunity of reading the reference books of Jon Speed, like “The Mauser Archive” or the “Mauser Pistolen” you can see that Jon refers to these documents quite often.

One of the most astonishing parts of the archive is for sure the glass plate’s collection. The Mauser Company kept a glass plate’s archive until the end of the Second World War.
It certainly has been a long journey from the first successful attempts at primitive photography to the present. Long before mega pixel digital cameras the state-of-the-art was the glass plate negative. The first photographic processes have been discovered between 1826 and 1839, and Mauser quite soon started using this new technology to photograph his production…

This archive has an important historical value not only for the Mauser enthusiasts but also for the photography followers.

Often, we see glass plate photo in the books after his digitalization process therefore we do not appreciate the “old” document itself.

For this reason I have decided presenting one of these glass plates that will be interesting for the C96 enthusiast because shown the C96 assembling facility with the workers…

More images here:

http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/glass%20plate.htm

You can see the different phase of analysis.

For the Parabellum enthusiast, it is interesting that together with the C96 and 1910 model glass plates, some plates of the Luger Swiss Model number 01 (!!) has been found… most probably these glass plates arrived in Oberndorf with Weiss in the 1930… An evidence that also DWM was using the same tecnology to keep trace of the most important gun...

I hope you enjoy.

Cheers,

Mauro

Attachment 26599
The glass plate in his original envelope... it has more that 100 years!

Attachment 26600
The glass plate extracted from his original envelope. A first analysis looking at the plate against the light.

Attachment 26601
The negative obtained scanning the plate with a good scanner...

Attachment 26602
C96 production factory. The negative is then reverted using a graphic software like Photoshop... Note the detail of the two C96 carbines around the clock and calendar visible at the end of the central corridor magnified on the top right for better analysis..
The analysis of the picture scanned in high resolution (1200 dot per inch) shown interesting details. It is possible reconnaising workers assembling C96 and stocks...

A lot of the workers seem interested in the photographer... :D

Sawhorses for tables???

What are those parts lined up on the left??? Can you tell???

Here some close-up, more if necessary...

Cheers,
Mauro

Attachment 26603

Attachment 26604