Unusual Holster Thickness
 

This was sent to me, I believe he will post some more information in a bit:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva"> I have a question about luger holsters. One of my holsters is an unusual thickness from the side view. Please see the attached image. Any help would be appreciated. The hoslter on the left is a 38 and the one on the right is a 40.

Thanks,
Thomas</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">http://boards.rennlist.com/lfupload/19401938holster.jpg

From my reads, holster manufacturing was pretty much a cottage industry -- most leather work in Europe, for that matter. They were given "spec contract" and some latitude on tolerances so long as they fell within an acceptable range, which accounted for degrees of variation of flap shape, color, shape, etc., and volumes could be written on the myriad of Ersatz holsters and equipment that came about from the two great wars and the depression in between...

and all that having been said...

That slab of extra leather in back of that 1940 is extraordinary. perhaps it was reinforcing a splice on some scrap leather used in one or more of the pieces that had been sewn on the back...

Ed,While I agree with most of what Trigger63 had to say I must say this is very common. It was not applied haphazardly with scraps for no reason. I get many holsters thru my shop for repair and I see this often. I couldn't say what percentage it is but I can say I see it often enough to say it was not a rare manufacturing mistake. Since I have seen it on more than a few occasions I would have to speculate that it had some purpose but what that might
have been exactly, is open to anyone's guess. Jerry Burney