Jones book, 1st edition
 

I bought Harry Jones off of ebay, not my only copy, this one was a good price and I can always sell it at a gun show. This turned out to be an original 1st edition from Nov 1959, and I started re-reading it the other night.

The usual response to reading these early books is; The advantage to reading Jones is that it was before a lot of faked items, everything perfect, and unexpected variations. But is this true?

I say yes and no, no, because in it, he talks about items being faked, variations being 'made up' back in 1959. So, this just proves to me that when someone tells me; I have had this in our family since the 50's, that I need to take it with a grain of salt.

Now, with Jones, I think many folks should remember and get back to the basics, this time period talks about lugers in the sense that a person had to try much harder in acquiring them, talks about the known variations; not to say that there are not new variations 'discovered' since then, because lots of lugers have turned up since then. Yes, there are mistakes and errors, mainly due to the lack of collector knowledge known at that time, but this, along with Kenyon and Datig are good, solid books that in my opinion are better than some of the books published since then.

I always suggest that new luger collectors buy Kenyon, Datig and Jones.

I will second that. Good write-up Ed, points well taken.