Vickers Dutch contract
 

Hi to all the forum members .
I've been doing some reading on the Vickers Ltd , Dutch Lugers . I don't own one but I had a chance to examine one belonging to another collector , recently , so got me interested and they do turn up in this part of the world occasionaly.
Most of the references suggest the guns were assembled and proofed by Vickers , from parts supplied by DWM .
But then I saw this one at Simpson USA , catalogue No. V02 , with the following ; " Recently discovered documents prove that Vickers manufactured these guns from scratch in 1920 "
Is that now the accepted facts , can anyone shed any more light on this ?
regards , Mark

Can you post a link to that auction??? :thumbup:

Postino -

See if this works:

http://www.simpsonltd.com/index.php?...81c992dfbb68fa

Thanks, Ron! :thumbup:

What do our esteemed scholars say??? *Is* there "proof"??? :confused:

I'm intrigued by that front sight blade...Are Dutch Lugers the only ones with that style???

Mark, people who are familiar with luger machining methods, stamping, tooling, etc. have said for years that the Vickers lugers have enough unique features peculiar to them that DWM could not have manufactured them, especially with the frame, grip safety, and other parts. This being said, there has never, to my knowledge, been any authentic documents that have proved this point. It's kind of frustrating as the Vickers factory escaped mass destruction during WW2 and such records should have been preserved, but alas, none have turned up to date. If SimpsonLTD, in their description of a Vickers luger for sale, know of such a document, then would they please shed light on it for the rest of the collecting community!

Thanks drbuster , thats very interesting and certainly contradicts much of what I,ve been reading .
John Walter states in his 2 books , that the Luger work was at Vickers Crayford plant rather than Erith , more famous for machine guns . He has no doubt that Vickers had the capacity and expertise to make Lugers , but questions where the production machinery came from , so soon after the war .

No, there are documents in "the dutch Luger" that states that DWM made the parts and they were shipped to England to by-pass the rules in place to Germany selling firearms to the netherlands.


VICKERS DID NOT MAKE LUGERS FROM SCRATCH. It would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for machinery, which has never been found, photographed or other luger like pistols made.

If there are documents, I'd sure like to see them...

IIRC there is a written account of one of the commercial managers of DWM who once stated that he was quite pleased with himself that he was able to unload a bunch of old parts to Vickers for the Dutch contract.

Nothing is impossible, but Vickers making them from scratch is very unlikely indeed. Also take into account that Vickers, DWM and Mauser had a pretty close working relationship for many years.

..Ah, found the reference: Page 81 of 'The Dutch Luger'.

Friedrich Holl, former commercial manager at DWM and Mauser, later responsible for military sales within the Quandt group (he ran the FN 'subsidiary' during WW2 as well), related this to Dutch collector and Quandt employee Henk Visser.

DWM supplied Vickers with the parts, including some machines and tools/gauges for final production and quality control. In that case Vickers became the 'manufacturer' and Interallied Control Commission restrictions were avoided.

Recently discovered documents prove that Vickers manufactured these guns from scratch in 1920 "
If SimpsonLTD, in their description of a Vickers luger for sale, know of such a document, then would they please shed light on it for the rest of the collecting community!

I too would appreciate it if Simpson's et al would provide this documentation to back up this claim.

Ed is correct that the possibility of a complete machine line to manufacture a Luger is not known in England and would have been horribly expensive to start up. Especially so given the few Vickers Lugers there are. Even German machinery was handed down from DWM to Mauser.
I believe Vlim is correct. DWM supplied Vickers with the parts, including some machines and tools/gauges for final production and quality control. In that case Vickers became the 'manufacturer' and Interallied Control Commission restrictions were avoided.

Information contrary to this would have to be much more extensive than "Recently discovered documents "


Jerry Burney

An interesting subject ! Thanks to all who have commented and provided further references .
Was hopeing we might provoke Simpson Ltd into contributing something .
Mark

If Henk Visser is right about what is said above (DWM parts sent to Vickers and then "finishing" was completed at Vickers), then Vickers would have to have at least made frames and grip safeties, as these parts possess enough unique characteristics to say DWM had no part in their manufacture. Maybe they (DWM) sent unfinished frames to Vickers, thus the peculiar finishing changes?

Perhaps to get around any arms exporting restrictions, since it would not be a complete or even finished weapon???

It wouldn't be the first time that the shipping manifest had 'scrap metal' as an explanation of the shipment's contents ';)