(I apologize in advance for the long post that follows)
The story of my first experience with an on-line gun auction (as embarrassing as it may be) needs to be completed. As noted earlier, I won the auction and the Luger was shipped to my California FFL dealer. While at the dealer’s doing the paperwork, I began inspecting my “new” Luger, and it appeared as nice as shown in the online photos. Then, of course, I had to try working the action. Hmm. For some reason, I found that I could not get the toggle to move more than about a half an inch. When I complained, the clerk said to me, “there’s a bit of a technique to this . . . “ and he proceeded to demonstrate how to make it work. Well, at least he tried, but he also could not move the toggle more than a half an inch! The mechanism would not budge!
After a bit of a tussle, the clerk managed to field strip the Luger into two major components, where it was discovered that the gun was “dry,” as in no lubrication. Best guess, it appeared to have been put away over 30 years ago with inadequate lubrication and never looked at again. In fact, a bit of lite rust was evident on some of the non-blued surfaces.
Needless to say, after being so excited about acquiring my first Luger, I was feeling pretty depressed at this point. My immediate thought was, “well, they did say, ‘buyer be ware,’ when dealing with online sites such as Gun Broker. I guess I learned the lesson the hard way . . as usual.”
Luckily, Mike Krause, the gun store owner, has extensive experience with Lugers and he offered to free the gun – “at a cost not to exceed $100.” I figured that was a good way to go, especially since I have no idea how to repair it, nor do I know where or if there is another local Luger gunsmith. And, since I must wait ten days to take possession, having the work done at the same location seemed to make sense.
After returning home, I Emailed the seller with my complaint about the gun’s condition and suggest he might want to help cover the gunsmith’s charges. No sale . . he said to just return the gun and he’d send me my money. That sounded fair enough, except the gun was already in process, I had paid the non-refundable DROSS fee and I would be out the shipping charge, bridge toll and the mileage to the dealer (60 miles round trip). All of that added up to about equal to the gunsmith’s $100 charge, so keeping the Luger was a wash. And besides, it was a very good looking pistol.
Well, of course, I changed my feedback rating of the seller from an A to a D for failure to disclose a significant aspect of the pistol’s condition in his description of the Luger (upsetting the seller no end). I’m pretty sure that informing the bidders about the frozen mechanism would have had a negative impact on the bidding. I know that I likely would not have bid at all, given my lack of knowledge of such things.
After the ten day wait (actually 12 days), I returned to “Krausewerk” to pick up the Luger. Mike Krause had done a great job on the pistol. It now cycles, although stiffly (like new!). A check of the bore found it bright and shinny. Following its $100 service, the Luger is now “as advertised.” In fact, it’s so nice, that I’m hesitant to fire it - - And remember, I did purchase four boxes of Luger .30 ammunition in anticipation.
This episode has been a “crash course” in buying firearms, state regulations and on-line auctions. It's clear, from reading what other post, that I still have a long way to go . . .