1893 Loewe Borchardt
 

1893 Loewe Borchardt

Serial #814, mag unmatched, #120.
No stock or holster.
Serial is on the side of the trigger, and on the bottom of the frame, next to the mag well.

This is amongst the first thousand Borchardts made, by the earliest maker, Waffenfabrik Loewe, Berlin.
BUG proofs on barrel, BU on receiver, breech block also marked, but I did not open the action to get pics.
D.R.P. 75837 is the Patent number.

Gun shows a bit of honest wear, I would rate it at 90% finish.
Straw parts look good, but the fire blued parts are a strikingly beautiful shade.
Back of the mag release button, extractor, and all screws are in brilliant fire blue.

I am not brave enough to field strip this one, sorry, and I even cringe at jacking it open.

A beautiful and rare species, Borchardts are the first semi-auto, mag fed handguns to go into production in the world.

Georg Luger "borrowed" and refined the toggle action from the Borchardt to design the Luger.
Borchardt had "borrowed" the toggle joint from the Maxim machine gun, although the toggle is internal on the Maxim.

As unwieldy as this gun appears, it actually balances pretty well in your hand.
This surprised me.
I understand that this is the Holy Grail of Luger collections, and I am suitably impressed enough by this 115 year old bit of workmanship to see why.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/2_copy16.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/7_copy8.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/3_copy12.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/8_copy9.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/5_copy11.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/13_copy5.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/9_copy5.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/16_copy5.jpg

Anna -- I'm very impressed. You have my dream gun! So beautiful.

Thanks Alvin, a few more pics.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/20_copy4.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/14_copy4.jpg

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/32_copy4.jpg

ahhh, a dream gun, very nice. If I can pick one up or a reblue as an example, I will get one, but otherwise, there are others out there i want.


ed

Great gun! Great pictures!

You continue to trot out the goodies and this one is very special! It is a bit lower number than my #897. I have been tracking Borchardt serial numbers for years and yours is one that I had not previously recorded. So now it has been added to the list and becomes a recorded part of history...thank you!

Thank you, Ed, Heinz, Ron, very nice of you to post.

I know there are some Borchardt owners on the board, but there are also possibly many that have not seen detail shots of one of these rare old birds.
I primarily posted to let the newer folks have a closer look at this beast, and for comparisons with other people's Borchardts.
I did a search through some of the older posts, and had not seen one of these examined closely.

And yeah, maybe a bit of Show and Brag. ;)

Thanks again.

...shall we see you again, reflected in the bluing or in the mirror finish of this astonishing beauty ? :)

How kind of you to ask, but no, sorry.

A Parisian "lady killer", so to speak? ;)

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

right, he is Parisian, the lady is lover to death :)

Shoot it! That's what it was made for.

Shoot it! That's what it was made for. Easy to say when you are not risking your own money..However, if it were mine I would have to shoot just one round.
Regardless of that..It is a gorgeous piece of history. I would dearly love to have one someday too. This one Anna shows is a very nice example!
Thanks for showing it off!
Jerry Burney

Anna,

Classic example of honest patina on a gun finish of over 110 years old.

Beautiful gun...thanks for sharing it with us all !

Some sellers of late hope to convince us guns such as these are original finish...;)

http://luger.gunboards.com/topic.asp...erms=borchardt

http://luger.gunboards.com/topic.asp...erms=borchardt

Watch it, Anna, Christian is trying flirt with you!! If you need to defend yourself against his charm, I would recommend a DWM 480C (9 mm) cartridge!!!

I have some French blood in me, and I can see French charm coming in at 100 yds!!

Albert

Anna,

Thanks very much for the closeup pictures, they are very enlightening. You might consider taking one more, turn the gun upside down and show us one of the strangest features of these, guns, the radically offset trigger.

--Dwight

Yes, that is a weird design indeed, Dwight.
Hope this shows the asymmetrical offset well enough.

http://forum.lugerforum.com/lfupload/12_copy6.jpg

Again I thank you for sharing this very beautiful borchardt, and the pics are great. The only Borchardt I handled was 2 years ago at a fair in Kassel, I nearly made a deal, but I took too long to decide, and lost it. :mad:

Alf.

What's the technical reason bebind the offset trigger? There must be a reason......

Because it just didn't look Rube Goldberg enough without it? :D

Seriously, with the huge wound up leaf spring in the hump at the back and the general oddity of the whole thing, it really looks like it goes "cuckoo!" before it goes bang.
I am only surprised it doesn't have little people spin out of it and dance on the hour too.

Let me make a guess.... could be wrong.

I guess Luger's "L" shape trigger connector is not there. So the trigger must be put on the side to align with the sear??

.... what's could sit bebind that screwed cover.....