To all,
When I saw Dougs photos of his sale of a navy toggle, I felt something was wrong. I looked at Ron Woods display of a repro versus an original navy toggle and I was absolutely convinced that Dougs toggle was a fake. I encountered so much opposition here that I decided to copy both the Ebay picture and Rons display. For clarity, I copied them onto photo paper because that would give me a sharper picture. I also copied to 8.5 X 11 inch paper so that people could get a better view of what I was talking about. While holding these pictures side by side, five other Luger people agreed with me that Dougs toggle was a repro. I then planned to take those photos to a local gun show where I knew more luger collectors congregate.
But never did I call Doug a cheat or a dishonest man. On two separate occasions I clearly stated that we should give this man some slack and that this discussion was for learning purposes only. I feel sorta insulted that people have put words in my mouth that I never said. Yah, like someone that you have known for anywhere up to 40 years would cheat someone. Boy, have I got some news for that person.
Until I saw Ron Woods last picture, I would have gone to the wall believing that Dougs toggle was a repro. But then I got to thinking about Rons pictures which I didn't think differed that much from the pictures that I have. So I decided to think 'outside the box'. There was just too much disagreement here on the forum. Did Ron also have a repro toggle? No way! Did Ron monkey with the pictures? Again, no way! Where Rons pictures of an original versus a repro really tell the real story? O-O-O! Possible. And finally, did DWM change the checkering on the toggle knob and they changed production from one model to another? After all, they did go from long frame to short frame during that process as well as from grip safety to no grip safety. O-O-O! Another possibility.
So I went to my treasure chest of navy Lugers. Fortuately, I have a large collection of the different navy models. To my distress I did find that one of my navies had a repro toggle. Good for this discussion, bad for me. This error occured during my transformation from artilleries to navies several plus years ago. But the rest of the Lugers are good, including one 1920's model 1914 navy.
What I found was that Rons picture of a repro is not that good. The surface of the repro is much flatter then one would suspect from the picture. The bevel edge is also much sharper then in Rons picture. On the original, the checkering is not as large as it is shown in Rons original vs repro picture. The flat surface in Rons picture almost looks slightly round and smaller when also considering the apparent over sizing of the beveled edges. Actually, Petes picture of a navy in an auction is a good picture of a real toggle. And that toggle corresponds to the toggles on my navies (except for one).
So, in conclusion, I have to say that Dougs toggle is legit. Where is that crow, I'm hungry. I hate passing the buck onto Rons back. When he speaks I generally listen up. This is a lesson that I should phyically look at something and not at pictures. Ron actually made me physically take a look at my guns and that resulted in truth. Rons pictures of original vs repro are really quite valuable.
Big Norm
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