This pistol is a remarkable example, and deserves serious examination and consideration. Note particularly, the OP’s offhand comment, “The toggle knobs are in the mid-part.” This is an astonishing feature, and leads to an historical digression.
We are all familiar with the fundamental operation of the Luger, a breaking locking system with toggle knobs placed on the rear toggle piece which strike or are otherwise forced upwards to unlock the pistol’s action.
What is not well known, is that in 1903 George Luger applied for a
U.S. Patent, granted in 1907, which described toggle ears mounted on the
middle piece of the toggle train. Conventional wisdom asserts that this patent was made to forestall a toggle-action weapon to be introduced by John M. Browning, to close any possible loophole which would allow Browning to claim any part of the toggle action.
This has always been considered to be a paper exercise, with no evidence that DWM actually produced an example of this modification. However, two examples of Lugers with this toggle configuration are known. One was profiled in the June 2004 issue of “The Gun Report” in Charles Kenyon’s “Lugers At Random” column. The other was to be found in Ralph Shattuck’s personal collection.
Kenyon briefly profiled a pistol he examined in “the 1980s”; I was able to examine Shattuck’s pistol in 2010. They are explicitly not the same pistol, and crucially neither includes a particular mechanical feature described in the patent. These pistols, and the patent involved, can be reviewed in the aforementioned “Gun Report” article; Sturgess Red Edition p. 1,688; and Charles Whittaker’s “Land of Borchardt” website
https://www.landofborchardt.com/1900exp-article.html.
The authenticity of these two pieces can fairly be questioned. The Kenyon gun’s serial number is not reported, and it may not have one. Shattuck’s actual serial number is not reported, although it is described in the “low three-digit” commercial serial range (I was not able to record it). There is no mention of either pistol being in the 10xxxB prototype serial range. Both pistols have old-model dished toggles, however: the Kenyon gun’s toggle knobs are upright and regular as would be expected from contemporary production; Shattuck’s toggle knobs ate “twisted,” skewed backwards (as demonstrated by the orientation of their respective toggle latches). Kenyon asserts that in 1903 the U.S. Patent Office was still requiring functioning models with their patent applications.
Which brings us to the pistol posted here. The posts contain a wealth of photographic detail.
The Old Model frame
sn 10055B reveals nothing out of the ordinary for Parabellum prototypes. It has been converted to a coiled recoil spring in a recognized manner. An insert to allow the installation of a standard recoil spring stirrup lever has been brazed in place on the right side of the grip frame. This style of conversion is seen on several frames of this period. At first glance the installation seems cruder than others, but it also appears that it may have been repaired in the field.
Sturgess lists the reported prototype serial numbers on p. 283, Red Edition, and in the surrounding pages pictures several of these guns. Frame
sn 10055B does not appear on this list, but its characteristics acceptably match the adjacent numbers. He shows a selection of frame serial numbers themselves; they are sufficiently individual that comparison with 10055B is not revealing.
The upper to this pistol is much more puzzling.
The parts bear the serial number 56. The highest reported prototype serial number is
sn 10158B, so
sn 10156B (not reported) is at least a rational possibility. The highest number prototypes are reported with short receivers, although this pistol’s old style breechblock and extractor would be an anomaly in this range.
This pistol’s flat-face toggle knobs have 60º face checkering, which had become standard in the 1904 New Model blueprints. The toggle latch looks superficially like the style inletted into the 1904 transitional navy pistol, but is skewed—slanted—back in the style of the Shattuck pistol.
The toggle-tail stamp GL hallmark is so often a forgery as to be legendary. Sturgess on p. 283 Red Edition shows a selection of them, the GL on this pistol is an acceptable match to several.
Nothing in this construction, either separately or together, addresses the unique toggle-break mechanism described in the patent.
All this is not to assert that this pistol’s upper is prototype construction, let alone specifically
sn 10156B. Or, that the construction is intended to be a factory representation of the 1907 U.S. Patent. Its circumstances, coming “out of the woodwork” and into Finnish army service, make it necessary to take its origin seriously in ways in which the Kenyon and Shattuck pistols do not,
Any further information is wildly desirable.
Notes:
The pierced-primer gas vent hole in the breechblock is an explicitly Finnish characteristic, it has nothing to do with a “Scandanavian feature.”
Sn 10007B would be by far the lowest reported Prototype serial number, anything you can remember about this pistol would be good to know.
The 100xx commercial serial range and the 10xxxB prototype range have nothing to do with each other. Their contemporary similarity is a coincidence.
Phoenix Investment Arms as source information should be approached with utmost caution.
--Dwight