Re: .45 caliber Luger information provided by the Norton Gallery
Of the two .45 Cal Lugers furnished to Springfield Armory while negotiations for the purchase of a total of 200 to meet the requirements of a field test, only one is known to have survived intact and is in excellent condition. This pistol remained in Springfield Armory until purchased by Sidney Aberman of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The pistol had apparently been purchased by an unnamed collector or investor around 1994 or 1995, and supposedly has again been sold once again to a collector/dealer.
One only has to look at the number of contracts that DWM had to fulfill in the 1906 timeframe to understand why they did not want to tool up for a pistol of completely different dimension. The correspondence between Hans Tauscher of DWM and General Crozier of Springfield Armory makes for very interesting reading. The negotiated price of the .45 Cal. Lugers was to be $48.75 each with 100,000 rounds of .45ACP ammunition furnished at a cost of $20.00 per thousand.
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