Re: Need help big time! (Long)
Hi Walt,
Valuation on "one of a kind" pieces is always very simple...it is worth exactly what the market will bear...what someone is willing to pay for it and what you are willing to take for it.
Having written that platitude, I realize it does little to solve your problem.!
As you have doubtless read here and elsewhere, condition is everything. Assuming your gun is a hither to fore unknown variant, it SHOULD be worth something close to what a very similar, but documented piece, in the same or nearly the same condition is worth.
I think *part* of your problem may lay in terminology. Luger heads are notiorious for using imprecise jargon, but you probably knew that.
Heinrich Kreighoff who got the famous Luftwaffe contract, was the SECOND kreighoff..his father Ludwig had been partner in Sempert and Kreighoff, which, upon Ludwigs death was subsumed by the younger Kreighoff's firm. During the period between 1924 (ludwig's death) and 1939 when HK acquired the Simpson tooling, the firm dealt in Walther Number 4 pistols and DWM P-08s. It seems very reasonable; hell, down right logical, to believe that your piece is from this less well known period in the kreighoff Company history.
Likewise, since new pistol production of 9MM pistols was strictly controlled by the Allied Inspection committee, it is not a long leap of faith to postulate that a Kreighoff re-work of a DWM artillery frame is likely.
Having said all that, the bottom line is there is *often* more history than what one reads in books, especially if one only reads a few books and does no independent research.
My two cents; hope it helps..
Tom
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