Buy the Books
 

Conventional wisdom here is, if you want to truly know what you are doing in the world of Luger collecting, read the source books on the topic.

This may -seem- obvious, and its easy to say (as I have) yeah, thats a good idea which I agree with completely, but I have a limited amount of money which I find myself spending on Lugers rather on books about them. I have intended to buy one book at every gun show, but it never seems to happen.

Well, at the last Portland show I missed a Luger I really should have bought, and couldn't strike a deal on another, and so found myself with a little more money in hand than usual. So instead I bought three books (for the record, Imperial Lugers and Weimer Lugers, and the Gortz/Bryans book on German Small Arms Markings).

What an epiphany! Even a quick scan shows that a very large percentage of the questions which get asked on this forum can be answered directly from the books. Not that they shouldn't be asked--I have asked my share, and new Luger owners will continue to aks them (as, I am sure, will I, and the rest of us)--but we all owe thanks to the patience and willingness of the real experts here to answer us anyway.

There are a couple other aspects to the books. In the first place, they are fun! All these Lugers, all these details, every page a new present to open!

Secondly, and more seriously, knowledge gained by one's own effort is knowledge never forgotten. In Imperial Lugers I ran into a two-page spread detailing the orders for marking the P-08. In it, it shows a specification that ejectors are marked. Now, we all know that DWM paid little attention to these orders, but Erfurt followed them almost slavishly. So, I pulled out my new Efrurt LP08 and checked. Sure enough, a teenytiny little inspector's stamp on the ejector surface, almost a pinprick, gone unnoticed by me and almost unnoticeable, until I learned about it. (You'll find a photo of it elsewhere in the Forum.)

I would never have thought to see this mark before I learned about it in the book. I will never again see an Erfurt Luger without noticing it--or, perhaps more importantly, its absence.

There are other examples. I have some, I expect that others here do as well. Knowledge is power, and fun. If you are one of those who have yet to start a Luger library, I highly recommend buying a book. If you have, then buy another. (Oh, and read it...)

--Dwight

Dwight, Very well put. Nice photo of the ejector too! I totally agree with you. I have every book I know about and yes I could have bought a nice Luger for that money. I am happy to have made that trade off as it has served me well. Like you say reading Luger books is a joy and each turned page is like a present! I particularly like Jan Stills publications, the photo's are sharp and let you see most of what there is to see. I am constantly disapointed in some books because they do not show all angles of what I would like to see. Just me I suppose. Jerry Burney

Well said Dwight.

We hear this litney about books and rightly so. I love them and will order another, but have to decide between Weimer and the new Dutch one with the cool pictures. I think the ones with knowledge is great, but sometimes the pictures in action is pleasing to sit back and relax.

Interesting about the ejector, I have never actually torn down my Erfurt Arty, it is reblued (but I guess worth more than the 600 to 700 I thought it was possibly worth to people, ref the recent thread on artillerys for sale on the forum [img]smile.gif[/img] ). Anyway, it is reblued and I have assumed a lot of the proofs and markings were gone, it was buffed pretty bad by some idiot and not me years ago. I will take my assorted guns at some point and compare them.