Magazine on eBay: Real or Repro?
 

Here's a "WWI" magazine on eBay which has five days to go and is already bid up to $134.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=2137460646

The mag is blued, has a wood bottom and no markings. I informed the owner it is definitely not WWI and is in my opinion a late reproduction. He replied to me with the following message:

"hank you for your imput. You are absolutely correct in that the magazine is
not a WWI issue. I received information from a close friend, who is also an
expert and well known luger collector, on the East coast, who stated that
the magazine is either a "Wiemar Army" period magazine, ( 1920-1929 ), or
a WWII 1942 "Last Ditch" magazine, produced by the Wehrmacht, with a
wooden bottom, due to the shortage of war material. That information can
be authenticated in the out of print book, "Military Clips & Magazines", by
"Don Hallok". You are incorrect about it being a recent repro. Ebay will
not allow me to update my description as there are already bids on the
item, so I will advise the winner accordingly and give a 3 day inspection
if they still want the magazine, so they can check it out for themselves."

Any comments? And by the way, has anyone heard of this book called "Military Clips and Magazines"?

Hi Aaron,
It is really hard to tell what the magazine is without more pictures and especially of the base and the numbers. We all know it is not a proper WWI magazine. -- The last ditch story is just a bull**** story in my opinion, with no facts to back it up at all. -- I think the Dutch Lugers of WWII did have some wooden bases, so that would be a posibility, but I'm not sure if the tubes would be nickel or blued? Other than the Dutch, the only other possibility would be a Weimar reworked Luger, and these are not that often noted. One has to remember that a blued tube would date the magazine in mid 1936 at the earliest. Good collecting!

Somebody out there thinks it is authentic with the bid so high and five days to go.

IMO, ML is correct regarding his comments; this mag is neither a Weimar rework nor a "last ditch" Wehrmacht magazine. Can't tell from the pics, however, it could just as well be a WWI era mag that has had the tube refinished and blued.

As ML pointed out, it could be a mag produced by Mauser for a Dutch contract. Reportedly the mags for the lugers supplied between 1937 and 1940 had mags similiar to that pictured on ebay.

There is a Don "Hallock" that has, over the years, accumulated a great deal of data related to the identification luger magazines. While some of this information has been committed to print in memo form and while Mr. Hallock has often expressed his intent to author a reference, to my knowledge he has never "published" such a book. Having never heard of a publication as cited by the seller of the mag in question, it is doubtful that one could be "out of print". Perhaps ML can correct me on this point as he his a close friend of Mr. Hallock.

I saw that mag also. There is another one on the same page with a nickel tube/wood base going for $47.00 but it is numbered. IMO these unnumbered ones with the wood bases command such high $$ because the fakers and boosters will have them nickel plated then put thier own desired numbers on them and boost an otherwise not totally matching Luger. Watch how hight this one will go, there is still 4 days to go before the auction closes on both of them. If you hit it just right you will be able to see who placed the high bid.

Bidders who place high bids this early on in an auction usually are uninformed about the item they are bidding on and the correct way to participate in an eBay auction. The price on this item is getting into an area where you can buy almost any magazine you desire. This whole thing doesn't make sense.