new pistole showed up at my house last night!
 

Had some wood tools I no longer wanted. So I advertised them on backpage as a package deal for trade. I got a offer of a iccs? .22 pistol which looks nice and all for a modern gun but I also got a offer on a 1921 Artra 400. Numbers match, 1 grip is cracked, its ugly, ammo is available but more expesive than a .22.
So which do I choose? The astra of course! the serial number put it as issued to the army in 1924. Totallly not practical, but if I was into practical type guns, Id be registered over on glock talk or someplace with the newer types of guns. Wife cant understand the facination with the older weapons. Besides the lugers, ive picked up a P1 walther, arisaka 7.7, nagant revolver and I have a CZ52. One of these days when I pass these things to the kid, she's going to look at the collection and wonder why dad didnt buy newer guns. (I do have a glock, cz75, AR's and others. ) but do like the old stuff. jim

Excellent thinking Jim !!

I've played all those in the past except "Type 38" Arisaka rifle.

Need one non-C&R handgun at home for self defense purpose, my S&W revolver (newly made in probably 1970) is filling that role at this moment. Six round capacity is not big, but, "do I have to fire six times in that miserable scenario".... so good enough :)

I decided to clean house a bit, and listed the astra for sale or trade locally, ended up selling it. On a side note, I picked up a nepal martini francotte rifle at the swap meet with some ammo. 577/450. Thought it was pretty cool impulse buy, got it home, did some reading and not sure what to believe but I did see IMA who is still selling these things sells ammo for 133 bucks a box of 20 and its recommended not to shoot the francotte rifle. So off it went.
Then as I was trying to get rid of some other junk, I ended up with a M1 garande in trade. Turns out its a century build but I got rid of some stuff I couldnt sell for something I still think is neat. Now I just need to order a bit of ammo and see how she shoots. I think this one like the lugers are going to be keepers. I may swap the reciever to a USGI one in the future, but for now im leaving it alone. jim