Auction Arms Navy Lugers For Sale
 

Action Arms currently is advertising two navy Lugers for sale. One is a 1906 and the other is a 1917. But when I went to his website, he had two 1917's for sale. So which one is he selling, the $3000 one or the $2800 one? No mention of a return policy. Not much information at all in the description and the pictures are not so good either.
The 1906 is a first issued unaltered which does make it rare. But it looks sorta rough with pitting.
The 1917 is hard to tell from the picture. The date on the side plates finger looks rough but the barrels bluing looks good.
I emailed the guy some questions but he has not had a chance to respond yet.
Big Norm [img]confused.gif[/img]

Big Norm, I looked at these and have the same opinion more rather than less.

On what is supposed to be the 06 un altered, the safety is on in the rear position. Am I wrong here or wasn't the alteration supposed to correct the safety being taken off when the pistol was slid into the holster? If this was the case then this pistol is correct in that the safety would be on when slid in and not placed in the off position because of contact with the holster. Am I off my nut here or what? Let me know. Jerry Burney

That 1906 is unaltered. Altered 1906 navy's had the "Gesichert" added on the up position, and machined out on the down position. The "Gesichert" is currently under the lever which is correct for an unaltered 1st issue Navy.
The change was made because as you put the gun into the holster, you would dissengage the safety.
That's at least the way I understood it.

I figured it out...I had forgotten about the grip safety. This always leaves the safety bar in the up position unless depressed. Jerry Burney

Jerry, Silvano is right. The 1st issue unaltered has the safety in the 'down' position. The 1st issue altered has the safety in the 'up' position. And the second issue has the safety on the 'up' position. The 1st issue altered is easy to spot because the 'GESICHERT' that was in the down position was ground off and was left in the white. It was not done very professionally either. The second issue has no ground off marking. This is why a 1906 navy should never be restored. There is a bit of history on this particular model. Then there is the 1906 commercial navy. But that is another story.

I don't mean to sound like I am hammering this gentleman. He may actually have two or three navy treasures. But when he shows two 1917's on his website but only advertizes one. I get a little cautious. Then AuctionArms shows he had only one previous sale. But there is no history shown on that sale. A long time ago someone on this forum shocked me when he said that we should ask if the gun pictured is the gun being sold. I think that this bit of wisdom would be appropriate here. Especially since the serial numbers were not shown in the auctions pictures. But there are other questions to be asked and answered to help determine value and the gentleman has not reponded to my questions yet.
Big Norm

Some of the 1st Issue Altered Lugers had the original safety marking faced off quite neatly and the gun was refinished at the time of the alteration, so that you really have to look close to see that the marking has been removed. However, original safety markings were all upper case "GESICHERT", whereas the altered markings are upper and lower case "Gesichert"! That is how you can quickly spot a 1st Issue Altered from a 2nd Issue. The practice of using upper and lower case for the altered markings is also found on some of the few 1903/04 Navy examples that had been modified.

"Imperial Lugers And Their Accessories" Jan Stills Pg 162.
"this work was accomplishedby Navy dockyards or armories; the quality varied greatly. The "GESICHERT" restampings ranged from identical to the original to crudely misaligned lettering, while the original safety markings were eliminated by punching, grinding, or milling or by filling in and remilling.".
My 1906 1st issue altered navy Luger was crudely redone with the old "GESICHERT" still readable. The newly punched "Gesichert" has a capital "G" with the remaining characters in small cap. There is a lettering style change between the original and the new.
Big Norm

OK, lets see if I copied the pictures right.
06navttop.jpg
06 navyangle.jpg
06navybrokendown.jpg
06navyleft.jpg
06navyfrt.jpg
Big Norm

Big Norm, I checked to see if you had tried to post pictures on the forum, but I guess not? I would be happy to if you want to e-mail them to me?

Ed

I have a 1st Issue Altered that had the original Gesichert faced off and left in the white, with the new Gesichert being pantagraphed in the new position. The cutter marks of the pantagraph machine are visible under magnification.

Ed,
I just finished emailing to you the email that I received from the seller. It takes a lo-o-o-ong time to mail and to down load. When I tried RENNLIST these pictures, I did not get a picture back so I guess that the pictures were too large. I hope that you can do something to post them on the forum. They should make for an interesting discussion.

The positives are that the 1906 looks pitted but original. And the 1917 could be a pretty gun. The negative is on the 1917. The serial numbers on the front of the frame are too large unless this is a Weimar rework. But then the '4' in the serial number has a closed top on it. The German style is for an open '4'. I would love to see these guns in person and examine them more closely. I would like to take a close look at the rear sights. Another negative is that the seller did not mention anything about a return policy. Something that I asked for.
Personally, I am passing on the 1906 but the jury is still out on the 1917. Could be a matter of price. But a lack of information about the return policy bothers me. At least we know which of the two 1917's that he has he is selling.
Big Norm

Here are the pics that Norm was talking about:
{sorry, left them bigger}

06navttop.jpg
http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/06navttop.JPG

06 navyangle.jpg
http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/06navyangle.JPG

06navybrokendown.jpg
http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/06navybrokendown.JPG

06navyrt.jpg
http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/06navyrt.JPG

06navyfrt.jpg
http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/06navyfrt.JPG

06navyfrt.jpg
http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/06navyunder.JPG

Hopefully that turned out well, they were 450 kb's each, so I shrunk them and lightened a bit. EBT

Great work Ed. They look better than the ones that I sent to you. See if you can do the pictures for the 1917. I will email you tomorrow to see what I did wrong. Its too late tonight.
Big Norm <img src="graemlins/a_smil17.gif" border="0" alt="[blabla]" />

Hello Big Norm,

It was simply the sizes of the pictures I am sure, they were over 400 kilobytes each and the limit on the forum is 180 kb's, so that is why they were kicked out. The photos all together came to over 4 megabytes, a large e-mail to you.

I used Photo Shop and shrunk them, lightened a bit and changed to a bit smaller but also changed them to 100 resolution which on the screen makes almost no difference. A higher reesolution would be seen if I printed them out, because the larger you make a picture the more the dpi (dots per inch) or lack thereof show up. (BTW, it is easy to change the color on them, that is something I still have problems with) and then uploaded them.

Sorry for the detailed remarks, will post the 1917 tonight or this afternoon if I have time.

Here are the 1917 Navy Pictures that Big Norm sent me.

#1 17 navy front

http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/17navyfront.JPG

#2 17 Navy Right Side

http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/17navyrtside.JPG

#3 17 navy top

http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/17navytop.JPG

#4 17 navy top close

http://boards.rennlist.com/upload/17navytopclose.JPG

I really debated on the 1917 navy. The key, to me, was the serial number on the front of the frame. The numbers are larger than they should be and the "4" in the serial number had a closed head. Maybe the size of the lettering can be explained. But the two observations, together, shock me off. Then, of course, there was no mention of a return policy. Now that the auction is over, I would like to see some comments from others on these and other points.
Big Norm