Luger Book
 

Just wondering if anyone has the book: "World of Lugers Serial Numbers Of Lugers Issued To German Agents In The United States 1913-1916".

It covers holsters, clips and drum clips, accessories as well of different models of Lugers. Hans Tauscher was the salesman located in the U.S. and supplied spies with arms both in the U.S. and Canada. The book contains letters as well as receipts and has a lot of facts. Sam Costanzo is the author and it was published in 1975. I have Vol. 1 and it is staple bound. I went to Amazon and 4 books are still available.

I have a question. If a Luger S/N is in the book would that qualify as a provenance? Would it have an effect on the value?

That book is a collection of historical BS.

Really!? Has the book been disproved?

It must be very unusual for a spy to leave lots of letters and receipts around.

Some years ago, one guy showed me a "Republic of China Mole ID" asking $100. Who invented this? A mole carry such a paper must be very nervous in at checking posts :)

The code name of the agent was creative -- No. 18519, Southwestern Flower. Probably issued to a female spy :)

The book doesn't list names. As I read the book Tauscher was the salesman for Luger in this country. There are letters of the investigation by the Gov't that resulted in Tauscher being deported. The serial numbers came from shipping receipts. He sold to legit dealers and others disappeared into the fabric of society. There is a post about him in 2007. http://luger.gunboards.com/archive/i...p/t-11015.html

I guess many Tauscher's customers were German immigrants, or German descents. The receipts should be useful in commercial Luger sale study. But German government sponsored spies ordered guns via Tauscher? I doubt that. If they need a few guns, they could simply send guns in via diplomatic packages. And, why spies need many guns... their mission was not supposed to be overthrowing US government by force.

Just read the first page monograph on Hans Tauscher. Costanzo references the US aiding Britain in 1916 "in accordance with the Lend Lease Act". Lend Lease did not exist until after 1939.

He goes further and has Tauscher "summoned to Berlin by Von Papen and given direct orders..." von Papen had earlier been disinvited from the US by our government for fomenting trouble with Canada and its involvement in the war. When von Papen returned to Germany in 1916 he was briefly involved with stirring the Irish pot but then assumed his Reservist rank and fought on the Western Front and later Mesopotamia. He was not the Imperial German spy master.

Costanzo was a student and friend of Ralph Shattuck. I suspect that this little booklet is an attempt to boost the value of pistols sold prior to 1916 of which records did survive. The idea that the evil Tauscher substituted the word "sold" for "issued" is ridiculous. Just imagine Tauscher's bookkeeper pulling his hair out trying to reconcile the bank balance with sold pistols.

and certainly nothing as inconspicuous as a fairly large military sidearm.

Geo, I always took it as a good source of serial numbers for the timeframe - but otherwise, it was a bunch of spy versus spy conjecture

I would love to copy the letters from the Embassy in France, Office Chief of Staff, Wash. D.C., Office of Military Intelligence, State of New York Attorney General and War Department but the book was published in 75 and still under copyright. There are copies of the original with all stamps present. I don't know if the little book is bogus or not. I found it going through some old books. I'm sure if the author was able to track down S/N's then I would assume there would be Gov't records somewhere to indicate that fact. It also states that miscellaneous items (holsters, mags, ammunition and other items) were auctioned off on July 20, 1921. It shows 74 drums with leather carriers were sold off - where I don't know. He does list the Federal Records Center in Suitland, Maryland as having many records as well as Stoeger and the Archives Nationales in Quebec. It would be interesting to find what all they have.