Telltale Mark
 

Ok when I shoot my lugers, they leave a mark on the
back that looks like a staple ,where the toggle hits the
frame. If it happens to all of them ,then how can there be
so many pistols with no mark on the back. Were they never shot in 80 or 90 years, and just carried around to wear the bluing off? What is up with this? I checked the
FAQ too and nothing.

They are reblued. All Lugers that have been shot and show signs of age will have the 'slap' mark. Only new, unfired, or refinished Lugers will have no slap mark. :rolleyes:

It's 'normal'. There will also be a corresponding mark inside the frame where the toggle/breechblock hits. In a perfect world, the mainspring would be balanced to eliminate or lessen the 'slap'. That rarely is the case.

Do you think they shot every one as they made them, or just put them together and
shipped them out? In a wartime production , I would doubt if they wasted ammo test
firing. Might be wrong and usually am.

Every single weapon manufactured was testfired for proof and function. But a few shots wont mar the finish.

For instance the best 98k's testfired for group was set aside and equipped with a scope.

Where did you see those... Legacy-collectibles.com ? If that's the place, then, a few, not many. They generally market old items not used much in the past.

Yeah some I see don't have the mark. I bought a reblue from Checkpoint. Shot a box through it and it got that mark. Kinda scared me that my ammo might be too hot. It
was factory stuff so I figured it was suppose to do that, and nobody had shot it since
it was blued.
I thought since all these had been shot that they all should have had that mark.

FWIK in Germany all guns were repeatedly testfired both before and after blueing, and apparently many Lugers did not pass the inspections and they had to put them right.

Checkpoint is a different story. In general, Checkpoint markets mid to lower end items. In C&R spectrum, each dealer has their main area of operation.

Of course, a gun being original or not is not by seller. But sellers' main area of business is a factor on items they carry.

Alvin, being a shooter and not a collector, I went for the best cheap I could find.
Even a $1000 for a shooter was a stretch for me. I could get two CZp07's or 2 Walther PPQ's for a cheap shooter luger. Its all in what you want. I see new people on this forum, and they all buy a commercial 1920's and wonder if its rare. Doubt they want
to spend $3000 for a collectable at first.

The more lugers you look at the more differences you will see in that "mark".
Some are one sided, some are very thin, maybe there are a few that are just right and don't have a mark, some are worn considerably-perhaps from hot ammo, lots of use, or a weak mainspring.

The mark is entirely "normal" and varies with respect to appearance/wear.

Morphy Auctions is interesting today. A reblued 42 sold $5500, and there is 15% on top of that. Who's bidding on that.. but on price level, that's nothing comparing with a brand of small knife called "Bowie Knife".

Heard of "Bowie Knife"? I know nothing about it... probably rare,. Just being rare does not mean it worth much, but obviously there are many people collecting those and they competed with each other. Many those small knives sold $30K, $40K, $50K, $90K etc today. If not seeing those sale myself, I had thought those knives just being rare junk... you never know.

Alvin, probably some dummie wanting to start his collection and it was pretty. If your looking for Bowie Knives, stay up late and they sell 40 or 50 in a lot for $26. The cable has it all.

No. No kidding. Having one or two "dummies", that's not surprise. But given the volume of these Bowie Knives in this auction session, and price level, just one or two bidders could not pump price up like this... astonishing. There must be an army of them. It's not one or two items, it's a list of full page of Bowies going crazy.

Go proxy and see them, search "Bowie", you will see them.

https://www.proxibid.com/asp/Catalog.asp?aid=127388

Handmade knives are really collectable. You would think they are collecting something
really cool. They do have a bunch for sale. Probably have a 1000 on Ebay. You can buy
one that is folded 400 times for around $60. Damascus is really in.

Perfect example of trying to analyze something logically without any knowledge of what you are talking about.

Bowie Knives are highly collectible, there were and are many makers, some are quite rare and there are many styles. Condition impacts pricing- just as it does with lugers and brooms. Books have been written about collectible, historic "bowie" knives- not the 10 for $26 that Paul mentioned.

Apples and oranges.:eek:

Luger Birth Marks~~

"Bowie knife" is basically a generic term for what one might call a "gentleman's fighting knife." The concept is based upon the legend that James (Jim) Bowie, who died in the battle of the Alamo, owned and used one. Although commonly interpreted as having had a large blade of 10" or more, with a clip point, the original is lost to posterity, and the specific blade architecture of the original "Bowie knife" will never be known.

IIRC, I paid around $400 for the one I own. Granted, I bought it on a visit to Audley House so that may have something to with it, too.

>> Perfect example of trying to analyze something logically without any knowledge of what you are talking about.

The purpose of illustrating this bowie example was not trying to analyze it from technical angle. But look at it from business perspective. Just searched "Bowie" on ebay and amazon, there are tons of knives selling from $5 to $150. Those must be fakes then.

On structure, knife's structure is much simpler than any firearms. No law controls making either. Given the eye-popping price of "genuine antique Bowie", in theory, there should be lots of high quality fakes too. Unfortunately, that's the way.

Hopefully, the bidders of those Bowies know what they have won. Of course they know? Not necessarily, there was bidder winning reblued 42 Mauser banner for $5.5k,,,, you know, the risk of $50k bowie is 10 time higher, and, consider complexity factor, the risk could be 100 times higher.

And, "handmade" by itself could be a big trap. Handmade means it can appear in any form. In C&R firearm domain, collectors compare samples against samples, compare thousands, or even tens of thousands of samples to summarize out something. In handmade world, comparison obviously won't work well. How about by provenance? Is there any provenance mentioned in auction... no... even mentioned, is that story sound?

Conclusion: playing bowie is like playing fire at home. Technical detail is secondary. That's decided by its nature, not by its details :) It's for people loving challenge.

Alvin,
You would be better off to start your analysis with what a "bowie" knife is vs. what a Bowie knife is.

Looking at prices on ebay is a very strange place to start an analysis.

Folks that collect knives or specifically vintage "Bowie" type knives and pay big bucks know what they are doing; folks that want a utility knife or one to use may want a knife of the "bowie" pattern, because they can't afford a real Bowie knife or even a cheap, but handmade knife for $60.

Do you know where the term "bowie" knife originated?

Maybe a little historic research is in order.

I collected "bowie" type knives in the past, like I said there are books written on them, when I sold most of mine off, I sold my "best" book too- just the book sold for over $400 on Amazon.

I'm not saying that many of your observations are not valid, they can be said of collecting anything- from figurines to Carnival glass.

But if you want to talk about knife collecting, you really should do a little more reading first. JMHO.

Maybe it's just me, but I think the shameless hijacking of this thread by Alvin shows gross lack of consideration to the original poster who, you may recall, was asking about the impact marks on the rear of Luger frames.
Norm

yes, I agree, the first couple of comments are fine and the original poster replied, but then it seemed that Alvin went off on a huge tangent.

I don't expect folks to always keep on target, but Alvin, you go off target a lot. Like Don said, trying to be analytical on an issue you don't know. I know you know a lot more than me Alvin, but this ''bowie'' knife issue is a good example. The difference between a 150 yr old bowie and one bought on ebay as a cheap copy is night and day.

BUT, I sometimes think you are just screwing with people... :)

There are oh so many knife makers and they make their products from so many different materials. So it is a matter of the quality of the steel in the blade; how the knife is constructed; how well the blade holds an edge, etc. Then there is the matter of appearances.
We all like knives that look great. Some people stop there. I know knife makers that have been doing it for years and they make only good stuff. They get good prices for their goods. Other people's may look super. Some are some aren't.
Talk to maker and see what he does and how he does it.
Then decide.
Thanks
Jack

Never mind. Let's return to topic.

In short, the staple mark being a tellmark or not depends on overall condition context. On worn items, lacking of staple mark tells reblue. Those reblued items usually have many signs, not only one. On well preserved ones, it's not necessarily being a tellmark. Case by case. There are some guns were not fired more than postwar Interarms Luger, not used or very lightly used. Depends on your vision and habit, some people love those unused gun, some people feel that's boring lacking of history usage etc and love worn guns. Personally, both types work for me, but I love mint gun in worn gun's price, and worn gun is acceptable too if it's an interesting one :) Usually not available every month, but you can almost always find people selling items greatly undervalue every year. No kidding.

Check our History Channel, 'Forged In Fire' A wonderful program on sword and knife making competition~~http://www.history.com/shows/forged-in-fire

We can always count on you to restore order, Eric! :thumbup:

Thank You Rich!!!

I was really just curious that a mark didn't appear on every 80 or 90 year old gun, that surely had been fired at some point in its life. The consensus is they were fired very little, or beblued , or maybe ran perfect where the spring was perfectly balanced as to not slam it into the back hard enough to leave the mark. So that makes sense to me.

Sturgess provides a rather different reason for the rear frame toggle strike mark. He addresses the entire rear frame strengthening process and reasoning in detail on pp1091-1098 of the red edition. In the course of the discussion he notes how and why the rear frame toggle mark is the result only of the toggle tail being levered against the frame during hand-operation of the action; during actual firing the toggle tail does not contact the frame. It is worth taking the time to read.

He does contradict this in passing, in several comments previous to this section.

--Dwight

I might get in trouble , but in any test, the results can be skewed to let you prove any theory. Maybe the test Sturgess performed was with a new pistol. If you read the posts on this website, you will see that the first recommendation for a Luger not functioning right is the tape on the back trick. If your pistol doesn't touch the tape then maybe the
mainspring is too weak. I think there is more knowledge on this site by experience, than in most of the books you recommend us to read. JMHO I really believe he must know his stuff if he can sell his books for $300 a pop. Now yall can tell me I'm stupid.

Brand new Interarms has no staple mark. I fired two of those in the past. Staple mark appeared after a box of ammo being fired.

This may very well be wrong.

I provided my source. As much as I respect what you post here, I suggest that you read it before you continue posting your opinions.

--Dwight

In my opinion, I would suspect that the book reference mentioned probably says how it is supposed to work from design perspectives, and with the pistol in proper tune for its ammo selection. It takes some work to get these old pistols to move during the shooting operation like perhaps they were originally intended; it has been for me anyway.

Wartime useage and layman abuse might get outside of that theoretical window. We all know the Luger will "work" with overly hot ammo, but the life of the pistol is shortened dramatically; just a matter of getting used to things I reckon; seems like all knowledge has a learning curve.

I would think that levering the toggle to make some indentations(some are right deep) that one sees over the years on some pistols might take a pretty stout boy. Again just another opinion.

The mark on the rear of the Luger gives me an indication of how the pistol was treated/maintained from a shooting point of view. I like some of the historical aspects, but finally moved to the shooting arena only; hence my interest in said marks. Pistol maintenance overall can make the Luger work as designed, I think that handloading or selection of ammo will take that aspect to the next level. I find that collectors and shooters have a bit of commonality, both care about the longevity of said pistols; but of course..........always a few ringers in both groups..... :)

Hopefully there will always be room in groups for the new guys and the old guys; hopefully remembering some of what Mom told us(me as well).

Yeah Dwight, I have about asked all the questions I wanted to. I will probably stop posting. If nothing else it might make you think. Thanks everybody for your input.

[QUOTE=Puretexan;304008].....

If you read the posts on this website, you will see that the first recommendation for a Luger not functioning right is the tape on the back trick. If your pistol doesn't touch the tape then maybe the
mainspring is too weak......"

You wrote this just backwards,
If it does NOT touch the tape, the spring is too Strong!
:cheers:

Sorry Don, I knew that. Was early and I didn't finish my coffee yet.

Comparison Of Wear~
 

Between a commercial luger a military~ A 1902 Commercial Fat Barrel~A 1914 DWM Artillery~

I have two 1920's and one 1939 police. All of them have the mark on the back
of the frame part. How did your 713 get it on the toggle itself?

Every 1902 fat barrel lthat I have researched had 3 digits on the toggle~ Possibility because there was less than 500 made and were meant for the American commercial market! All the rest of my 20 are similarly marked with 2 digits~

Cirelaw, I meant how did the scratch part from firing get on your toggle
instead of the frame?