Ron, again excellent points, especially on the singular use in Tauscher's letter, which would seem to rule out a "reference" piece.
As to the holster, I dunno. Certainly the Army could buy holsters if they wanted, but they did have a record of wanting them made by the government or at least of the government having the capability of making them. (The production of the 1911 at Springfield, for example.) Maybe some research on Schmitten would tell when he was at RIA.
Before groaning too loudly on the price, that $17.50 would be about $700 in today's dollars, not a bad price, but not such a tiny amount as it sounds. I don't know whether the $26k would be "right" or not, as Borchardt sales are pretty uncommon, especially one of that quality, test piece or not.
BTW and FWIW (boy, I like those abbreviations) the serial on mine is 1629, the magazine is 1635. Why the mismatch on such a rare gun? I don't know, maybe it was a test piece and I can get big $$$$ for it????
Tom, I fully agree with you and would like to add that an overall look with an experienced eye is often worth more than details from books. At one gun show, I watched two guys looking at a Krag "carbine". They checked the "C" on the sight, and concluded that it was OK because "the book" said that was the way to tell a carbine. They completely ignored the unevenly sawed off barrel, the 1903 front sight band, the sling swivel cutout in the buttstock, and, just incidentally, that the "C" was the wrong size.
Jim
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