Like George, I have some reservations about the holster. I generally agree with his observations. The color is definitely wrong and from the photos it can be seen that it has had either cordovan dye or shoe polish applied, I think probably shoe polish. But it is a couple of finer points that stand out for me. The rivets for the belt loop are placed a tad too high, going through the bottom of the top flap...the originals that I have seen have the rivets placed just below the edge of the flap. Also, the stitches that hold the reinforcement pad at the trigger area are not exactly right. There are two rows of four coarse stitches on this holster whereas the usual configuration is two rows of five finer stitches. Picky points I know, but the devil is in the details. If I were to go out on a limb, I would suspect that this holster is one of the very early excellent copies made by El Paso Saddlery before they started marking them with their logo on the back. After a few years of use it is really hard to tell their holster from an original except for the observations made here.
P.S. for Alvin:
There really arenâ??t too many variations of the U.S. test holsters. As you pointed out, the holster on page 420 of "Central Powers Pistols" is different. It is one of only two examples that I personally know of that was made for the right hand side with the butt to the rear. All of the other Test holsters are made with the butt forward in cavalry â??cross drawâ? style. You will also notice that the Central Powers example (also shown on page 212 of â??Imperial Lugersâ?) has a tie-down device on the toe of the holster like the M1904 U.S. holster for revolvers. I think that these right hand holsters, with and without the tie-down, were probably very limited production pieces made to explore alternative concepts, as opposed to the many butt-forward holsters that were sent to the field for testing.
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If it's made after 1918...it's a reproduction
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