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Nice shooting! Really good photo's.
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I'm going to post the closeup of the chamber totenkopf for future reference...
Jared - It is requested that you post pictures directly to LugerForum...Some of our members (the more knowledgeable ones) are behind corporate firewalls that block PhotoBucket, YouTube, SmugMug, etc...and because PhotoBucket 'upgrades' their site regularly (for example, Flash) and anyone not having the latest upgrade can't view the pics... |
I am a big fan of 'Totenkopf" Lugers...Is this a chamber stamp that has been displayed here before??? Not the gun itself, but the stamping...
(I'm assuming the Freikorps stamped rather than engraved the graphics)... |
:DGosh,
I feel so ..well useless/worthless/numba thun a powndud thum. I do try to be more 'knowledgable", alas I cannot find a corporate wall to protect myself..and now this.:D |
Maybe a ring to go along with this gun. http://www.ebay.com/itm/GERMAN-SKULL...item41619f9fe0
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Just a reminder. In Germany a retired gun smith has come forward, who claimed he applied these TK markings on behalf of a German importer around 1960.
So treat these markings with some reservations and remember that they start to show patina because they have been applied some 60 years ago by now. |
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That wasn’t German way nooo way. |
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Let's remember, these were not skilled craftsman, proud of their work...they were bar room clowns; thugs who beat up elderly shopkeepers and who brawled in the streets with Communist demonstrators... That even one of them could carve any graphic out of a piece of steel and stamp it on pistols & rifles (there are pics of the skull on rifles too) is remarkable... As for Vlim's comment, that is certainly possible...but did that mechanic do *all* the death's head lugers, rifles, and trucks??? Nooo way... |
Norme,
Nobody is saying that the freikorps units, or others did not apply death head logos to their equipment. So that argument is not a valid one. But, you are free to believe whatever you want. To me it is perfectly clear that most, if not all, DH logos on lugers were applied by the same gun around 1960. Caveat Emptor :) |
Hi Gerben, I haven't contributed to this discussion yet, you must mean forum member Rich (postino). Regards, Norm
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IIRC the discussion here a year or two ago, there were photos in respected Luger books showing these 'cartoonish' graphics before 1960... That deaths head graphics could be copied is a valid argument, although why copy such an amateurish depiction is confusing...Why not, as SIG2101 alluded, do a proper death's head & bones??? If Vlim's master gunsmith was responsible, was he copying an existing and proven death's head graphic on a Luger and wanted it to be recognized as the same workmanship??? ...I like controversial Lugers...Someone find a Russian contract 1906 Luger with a death's head... :roflmao: |
But what about the over stampings and the X over the last eagle? Also the X with a line thru it on the trigger guard?
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I remember reading a fascinating thread on this forum about the TK logo. There was a picture of a WW1 German officer with a insignia that matches the cartoon logo seen on some of these lugers. He was reportedly in one of the flamethrower units.
Has any WW1 luger ever been seen that is unit marked from one of these German flamethrower outfits,with that same TK logo?:confused: The little marking above the skull does look like a hose of some kind. That marking is not on the later Nazi TK and the style of the TK seems different. Just thinking out loud. Gerben is right, you can believe what you want.:D Bob |
While I accept and even endorse some of the skepticism surrounding the “Death Head” (DH) marking, I wholeheartedly reject the blanket categorization of all of the Lugers so marked as “fake”.
I would like to debunk the circulating fantasy that all of these examples can be attributed to the efforts of an aging unidentified “retired German gunsmith” for an un-named German importer around 1960. This is an urban legend at best. Fred Datig published his seminal “The Luger Pistol” in 1955. There was no mention of the DH Luger in that first book, but in the revised edition of 1958 he has a photo and write-up of an example. Obviously the photo was taken or surfaced somewhere between 1955 and 1958, certainly well before 1960. You could chalk it up to the failing memory of an 80-odd year old gunsmith who forgot the date he forged a whole bunch of guns with a number of different dies…I prefer to chalk it up to sheer baloney. As Postino has pointed out, the “cartoonish” insignia of the Freikorps era would lend credence to the crude execution of the DH markings on the Lugers. The creation of markings by rag-tag provisional units during a post war time of turmoil and rebuilding can’t be compared to factory applied markings or properly commissioned works by either Imperial or Nazi German government entities and should not be held up as evidence that it “wasn’t the German way”. Before someone raises the objection that there is no hard evidence that these are actually Freikorps markings, I will say I agree. However, it is my belief that is the origin of the markings and as Gerben says, you are free to believe whatever you want. |
I just did a google/Image search for "Freikorps" and got hundreds of pics...I saved four showing death's head graphics (trucks, tank, armored car) and all have a 'balloonish' head, which is quite close to the Luger death's heads...
This makes me wonder when we got so spoiled that a proper skull & crossbones had to look like a pirate's flag...Was it during the movies of the 30's??? Errol Flynn as Captain Blood??? Maybe the Freikorps death's heads were the German embodiment of a skull... :confused: |
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Vlim mentions these guns were made for a German "Importer"??
Does this mean for importation into Germany or the US? If these guns were destined for the US market, would they not all sport import marks?? |
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It happens whey you try to answer too quickly, while being stuffed with medication :)
The marking was done, according to German sources (including Kornmayer), for a US dealer by a German gunsmith, in order to have a laugh at the expense of US collectors and boost the prices of pistols that were, by the standards of the day, barely collectible otherwise. But I think enough has been said about it. We seem to keep going around in circles anyway. At least the Germans find it amusing :) |
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(And we all know what perfectionists the Teutons are...) :p |
I'm laughing too, but....
Would not all guns destined for us gullible, ignorant US collectors still require an import stamp?? |
Not in those days :)
And then again, even today they manage to sneak unmarked pistols onto the US market from abroad. Imagine how easy the proces was when nobody really cared, back in the 50s and 60s? Interarms, for example, was importing guns literally by the shiploads, offloading everything on their private docks. And they were just one of the importers. |
As long as US collectors do not pay extra $$ for this skull more than a "1920" property stamp, it's OK.
=== Pay extra for a single instance is OK as well. |
Just a thought. If a German gun smith did this job for the exporter, would they be smart enough to just put them on WWI era Lugers?
You would think you would see a few (If not many) post war and WWII Lugers with this DH marking also if the reason was to boost the value. Bob |
I look at that DH logo and see, not a skull and cross bones, but a shrunken head w/hair. And the "cross bones" could well be ears. It is a really pathetic characterization of a skull.
dju |
Ron mentioned the skull was published in 1958. One possibility was the skull stamp being real on some guns. The German gunsmith mentioned by Vlim could study that article, and started his work in 1960, so he knew the shape, size, WWI etc. There is no conflict in timing.
Of course, general theory has nothing to do with this particular instance being real or not. |
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Thanks Postino
Great pic. I see that is a heavy duty 2 man flamethrower unit. It makes sense some of these specialized troops where unhappy with how the war ended. They joined the Freikorps to express their displeasure and took their TK insignias with them. Would be interesting to see the style of the TK logo on one of the German WW1 rifles you mentioned. Bob |
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I'm fascinated by the graphics style itself...'Cartoonish' was the term SIG2101 used; but if you do a Google Search for 'Pirate Flags' or 'Jolly Roger' you'll see that the skull & bones were pretty cartoonish even way back in the 1700's... We've become accustomed to the anatomically correct skull & bones, but early pirates (and Freikorps, which is almost the same thing) weren't doctors or anatomy professors...And they obviously weren't artists... This theory that a German gunsmith would copy cartoonish graphics at the request/payment of an American importer just seems so...improbable... I just can't see anyone with the skill to do metal graphic engraving (whether diemaking the stamp or cutting the metal with a chisel) not improving the design... To me, the amateurish graphics prove the authenticity...No, not of all, but at least some (maybe most) of them...I would be surprised if there weren't examples of double-strikes, or uneven strikes, of the skull graphic on some Lugers... My original question was if the graphic was the same for many Lugers...indicating the same die was used...But I know I've seen different sized skulls pictured, so there had to be more than one... |
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Here's a few scary ones.
The one on the GEW98 looks like Bob Hope Bob |
Interesting, right eye size on skulls are different (sanded Gew 98 vs Luger).
== Actually, two different stamps used. Almost everything on two skulls is different in detail. I like the Luger one better. Gew98 one is too stylish. |
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Thanks Bob
So,we have a rifle and some lugers with essentially the same style TK logo? My other thought is about the German gunsmith from the 1960's. If he was adding TK logos with the intent to deceive,wouldn't it better to use the later SS style TK?:p Much more menacing looking, as opposed to Bob Hopes skull with a topknot. Bob |
On page 969 of Volume II of "Pistole Parabellum" is a picture of a fake DH stamp purchased in 1990 in Germany. It is VERY similar to the stamp on this pistol. Sturgess says the 1960 pistols were forged in Hamburg and shipped to the US.
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Fred publised a revised edition with in 1962 with over 320 pages and publised a few pages devoted to the facinating subject.
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R.I.A. Auctions sold this 1914 at auction,
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The TK on the WSS hat in the photo looks like a tanker's TK, not a proper WSS TK to me. Sieger |
Could these skulls be applied post production?
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