An English Mauser Manual
 

Bought a manual on EBAY from Mr. Joe Buffer's son (Who's Buffer? I don't know, but his name is on Erickson & Pate's book, must be a collector). He said it came from his father's collection. It looks original to me, at least its quality is much higher than the replica that I once had.

He also had a German version of the same manual, which is rarer, but the cover is already disconnected from the manual. I think I will wait a better one.

For cross referencing purpose, I will also post his GERMAN version of the manual (copied from the advertisement), which does look very different from the English one.

It's interesting to notice the Mauser address on two manuals. Both were handwriting, not photoed from real gun. The address on English version was written by an elementary school 1st grader. On German version, ... by 2nd grader?? :)

Very nice

Interesting to note that the pistol shown on the front page, does not have the stepped barrel - typical feature of every 1930 Modell I know.

That's a nice addition to any collection. In recent times I've been paying more attention to this kind of regalia. It is a nice complement to any collection. Congratulations!

Douglas.

The pistol in the manual does not have s/n, nor proof mark. Looks like it's a specially made instance for illustration purpose only. That probably can explain the missing step on the barrel -- it's not a normal production pistol.

The pistol on cover has "Universal Safety". The manual says it's a feature starting from s/n 800,000. The German patent of it was filed on Sept 24, 1929.

On "Mauser Archive", 1929 Order/Offer pages were translated. It's interesting to notice March 13 Mexican War Ministry ordered simply "C96 pistols cal 7.63". August 23 & 24 Arbeit ordered "C96 pistols cal 7.63, old model" and "C96 pistols cal 7.63, new model".

What was "old", and what was "new" in August of 1929? "new" could not be a pistol with Universal Safety -- the patent had not been filed yet. The "new model" must be "Transitional 1930" with NS safety, large grip, and 132m/m barrel. It was not called as "1930" by Mauser though. It's 1929 new model.

By Nov 11 1929, Arbeit ordered "C96 pistols, cal 7.63" again. No mention of "new" or "old" anymore. Probably old ones were all gone by that time. "new" was business as usual now, so there was no need to mention "new" anymore.

By Nov 7 1930, finally, Arbeit was able to order "C96 pistols Model 1930". This must be the "Early 1930" called by today's collectors, with Universal safety.

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The labor cost of making a Mauser 1930 was roughly 20% lower than making a Mauser Luger. Probably due to 1930 having lower requirement on tolerance mechanically?? Even small factories with primitive tools of that could make a few working example of C96s in that era, but I have never heard anyone could easily copy Parabellum.....