Capture paper value
 

New to the Forum, thus a novices question. Given two identical Lugers, one with 1944 capture papers, containing the serial number, how much (percentage) does the paper increase the value over the unpapered pistol? Thanks.
Ron

It varies with the collector who is buying... these papers have been known to be faked by unscrupulous sellers... if genuine, some say it increases the value of the "rig" by $50.00 or even more...

The only Lugers made with a 1944 chamber date were Krieghoffs used by the Luftwaffe. Rare and expensive Lugers, as there were so few produced compared to Mauser. If you talking original capture document for a Krieghoff by serial number, then that piece of paper has to worth a lot of money with the pistol.

If it is a capture paper for a Mauser, Erfurt or a DWM made Luger the paper will add at least $100 or a little more to the gun. Mauser stopped making Lugers in the Fall of 1942 in order to produce the P-38.

Make sure you know what your buying before you invest a lot of $$$.
Joe

I don't know that I have ever seen 1944 dated papers.

taqcfoley

Interesting variation of an old Chinese saying.

George

I have seen quite a few capture papers and like you never saw one dated earlier then 1945. Not saying there aren't ones dated prior to 1945.


The 1944 date might be a "red" flag concerning this document, unless somebody knows of an earlier version.

Joe

I don't know if it would be an indication of a forgery. Let's put this in perspective. How many troops rotated home from the ETO in 1944 versus 1945? The Allies landed in France halfway through 1944, so there's only six months left in '44 to go home, or to send a package home. There probably wasn't a lot of guys "going home" unless they were either a very senior officer doing some stuff back in the states, or were WIA. Compare the numbers of both of those groups with the great exodus of returning GI's of all flavours during 1945, and you can easily see how rare a 1944 marked set of papers would be, yet that doesn't mean they don't, or didn't exist.