There are collectors in my area that bring Lugers to gun shows to display. They are not for sale.
Discussions with them, and close inspection of actual collectible Lugers - priceless!
I did buy my first Luger (1 1923 Alphabet commercial DWM) at a show. It turned out that my offered price was right in line with it's value. I didn't have a fraction of the knowledge needed to make an informed decision at that point. I was just lucky.
75 percent of the Lugers I've seen at shows after that have had some defect that would turn off a collector. Parts swaps; refinished; pitting problems etc... Yet each one was priced as if it was collectible.
I actually had one seller tell me that an all matching Mauser Luger (except for the trigger plate which had a "42" serial number on it) was all matching because "42" was the Mauser code number. If armory replacement parts like the trigger plate were marked "42" by Mauser, it's the first I've heard of it! If this is actually true, I'd love to verify that here.
The last show had a seller that wouldn't give me any contact information, but told me he was visiting from California - across the US from us here in Raleigh. He had three Lugers that were "Perfect condition". An American Eagle priced in the $5,000 range. Two Mausers - they were only $3,500 each. I looked closely at them and found that both Mausers had been re-crowned to a flat - square crown. In the white because they had been refinished and messed with in other ways.
It almost seems that "boosting" that value of a Luger has become a way of life at gun shows.
Marc
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