The Ortgies "Prize"...
 

Here's an unusual Ortgies 7.65 (.32acp) pistol I acquired a year or so ago.

The grips have been modified by adding coarse checkering and with the embedding of two coins.

One appears to be a German States Imperial coin perhaps 1 mark. I believe that the "B" mint mark is Hannover.

The other is from Imperial China's Kwang-Tung (Guangdong) Province, a 7.2 Candareens silver coin. This coin minted around 1908 or earlier. Minted in Canton China for the SouthEast region.

This is one pistol that would probably have interesting stories if it could speak!

Pictures attached...

Marc

Very interesting gun!!

German traveler's pistol in Canton or Hong Kong?

Alvin,

Most likely... Canton and Macao are adjacent to Hong Kong. Yet somehow it ended up in the SouthEast USA...

The work could have been done in China or the Far East, yet the coins are from a period that is earlier than the pistol. Perhaps a German merchant mariner...

Marc

Yes. I was going to add that it is slightly different from other Ortgies that I have seen, but now I see that the grip safety is fully engaged...Disengaged pic below)...

This from POTW -

"Safety was questionable; the only safety device was a grip safety which when pressed in would lock in that position until released by a button at the top of the left grip"

Hmmmm...Your safety is off... :p

Yes - Safety was off.

When I got it, someone had epoxied the grip latch and side of one of the grips. I had to carefully remove the epoxy (blind through the magazine well) and then found that the grip's engagement slot was broken out.

I repaired this by cutting in a small piece of walnut which is externally not visible.

The disconnector doesn't always seem to engage (as the slide returns the firing pin falls). For that reason, I've never loaded or attempted to fire it. Any thoughts on how this might be adjusted?

BTW, I got a images of the factory manual from Francis a while back, and we put together this PDF file:

http://forum.lugerforum.com/attachme...1&d=1421337642

Marc

Yes this is a common problem with the grips getting broken too cause peeps didn't know how to remove them.