[Kyrie]

Hi Johnny,


My comments â??between the linesâ?....


>I find it unusual that as collectors we would accept one shred of evidence as being the


It is not, as you say. â??one shred of evidenceâ? - itâ??s the official US government record, made at the time of the delivery, by someone who was actually there. Thatâ??s a claim no one alive today can make.


>deciding factor that a test pistol would not be correct if it fell one number out of the

>range quoted in an accounting notation.


Such is the nature of the world; either she is pregnant or she is not


So too either a Luger is a Test Trials Luger or it is not. It matters little whether it is one number or ten thousand numbers outside the range.


> To do this, all other evidence to the contrary is summarily dismissed. It is just as

>incumbent to prove that all evidence presented is either false or not worthy of

>consideration.


No sir, not dismissed. In collecting we will come up against sources that differ. Itâ??s then up to us to weigh what each source says, consider the origin of the information they offer, and form some reasoned judgment on which of the sources is more credible (or sometimes the least incredible!). Such is the nature of collecting


>The discussion involved only the 1900 Test Trials Lugers, and any other Lugers sold

>by Bannerman have absolutely bearing on this discussion. I personally have never

>seen evidence of Bannerman selling the Model 1900 commerial model at the same

>time they were selling the test trials pistols.


Respectfully, no sir. You have seen Bannerman 1900 Commercials, you just want to call them Test Trial Lugers. You are certainly free to do so, but others will disagree with you - and thatâ??s all that is happening here.


>Whether the pistols were sold as scrap or as surplus still has no bearing on the serial

>number range. The result is still the same.


Respectfully, and with no offense intended, it has a direct bearing on the credibility of your position when you make statements that are factually untrue. All this goes back to the need for collectors to assess the relative credibility of two positions, and one criterion by which this assessment is done is the apparent level of knowledge of the proponents of each position.


>The total shipment of Model 1900 Test Trials pistols totaled 1000, and I fail to see

>how the government trading 50 of these pistols changed the original order of 800

>(assumed).


I never said it did. You asserted that, and I quote, â??The pistols sold to Bannermans accounts for all but 20 of the original shipment of 800 pistolsâ??. Which means the majority of the 50 pistols returned to DWM in exchange for 9 mm Lugers had to come from the last 200 Lugers received by the US Army. Thatâ??s highly unlikely, as you yourself wrote that there was, â??plenty of reason to believe that the second shipment would not all be sent to the field and therefore be the "best of the best"â??. The Lugers returned to DWM were in only good to very good condition and therefor likely came from the first 800 received.


Moreover there was no, as you write, â??original order of 800â?? Lugers. The order was for 1,000 Lugers, which were delivered in two shipments. The devil, my friend, is in the details. If we fail to keep straight the details we will, as you have done, make factually incorrect assertions. Respectfully and cordially, I suggest you may want to take a moment and go back over the literature to refresh your memory of the details. Iâ??ve found doing so can bring a welcome clarity to oneâ??s thoughts.


>You completely misunderstood my statement about the pistols being shipped in

>blocks of consecutive numbers. When the pistols were sold to Bannermans they were

>in two consecutive blocks of 30 pistols and 748 pistols and these blocks were 265

>numbers apart. What happened to these 265 pistols? Where is the evidence that the

>government destroyed any pistols?


See Reese.


> It would seem strange that 748 pistols could remain consecutively numbered with

>this representing 75% of the pistols purchased, and have none of these pistols

>destroyed.


Indeed it would, and this is one of the reasons that Bannermanâ??s records are suspect.


>Nowhere in my posts have I said it is either black or white with no shades of gray, but

>to accept the range of 6099 to 7098 is basing everything on what even Michael Reese

>calls evidence, as opposed to a document.


Not at all - it is based on US Government accounting records. We donâ??t get much better documentation than that, especially when it comes to Lugers. For most Luger variations there is literally no primary source documentation as to serial number range.


>If you will look at Charles Kenyon's early writing he accepts the 6099 to 7098 range

>as being correct. Now jump ahead and look at his "Luger: The Multi-National Pistol".

>In it he indicates that the range of the first 900 pistols is in the 6100 to 7100 range,

>and that the second shipment is in the 7200 range. As Charles Kenyon is one of the

>leading experts in the field of Lugers, he as apparently changed his mind due to new

>evidence being provided.


Perhaps so - we all judge based on the evidence we have. When Mr. Kenyon shares his evidence I might well change my mind.


>Michael Reese wrote a great little book on the Test Trials pistols, but none of his

>evidence is written in stone.


Nor is primary source information to be put aside based on speculation. If and when someone comes forward with better evidence than the original records, made at the time of the event, then we will have something very interesting indeed. But at the moment all we have are the primary source documents on one side, and conjecture based on speculation on the other. Or so it seems to me


> I guess we believe what we want to believe, and disregard anything contrary to our

>opinion.


Indeed


Best regards,


Kyrie