Michele, a very unfortunate situation where circumstances out of your control worked and conspired against you. Because Ralph doesn't provide photographs you have to trust his judgement over the telephone. I assume that the luger in question (I don't recall the Forum posting) is a 1908 "first issue" P08, as this was the first Imperial Army issued luger. You are correct in that it would have been a good idea to have knowledge about this particular model so specific questions could have been asked to Ralph when making the purchase. In certain circumstances, he will return funds even after the usual three day waiting period. Yours sounds like one of those circumstances. Would you have been able to inspect the pistol at the dealer who was acting as the transfer agent within the three day period? Was your dealer knowlegable about lugers? Could he have advised you in time? If you were truly unhappy with this deal then you should have taken Ralph up on the consignment sale as he has many lugers on consignment and I'm sure he would have seen to it that you were satifisfied. Basically, it's "buyer beware" these days, even with the most honest and caring of dealers. You must be "armed" with knowledge. Many times on both Forums "newbies" have been advised to buy luger books before buying lugers. This is very good advice. There's so much to learn about these fascinating pistols...one must NEVER assume that he knows everything!
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