Hi John S,
I am not so sure that the true vet-bring back guns have a higher chance of having a matching mag.
Some time ago on the old board it was reported or speculated that the Lugers magazines from guns captured at the end of the war may have been removed from the guns and stored into piles or crates separately from the piles of Lugers. That would make it highly unlikely that the corresponding magazines found their way back to the original Lugers from whence they came.
Of the ones captured on the battlefield and smuggled back to the US as contraband, the magazine may have matched when they were imported, if the German soldier didn't loose or damage the fragile aluminum or plastic based mags in the freezing mud of the Eastern front, etc.
Still and Datig clearly state that Lugers found in large collections 40 years ago did not normally sport matching magazines. It was rare.
Weren't all those large collections built upon vet-bring-back guns? Bear in mind those guns were acquired much closer to the end of WWII and thus were far less likely to have been altered or modified than guns coming to light now, 60 years after the war. Those guns may have had only one owner (the WWII Vet). Who knows how many hands the guns showing up now have been through?
Finally, the desirability of matching mags is relatively recent. I can easily imagine a combat vet in the '50s swapping his matching blued mag for his byf41 for the neat looking chrome-plated mag from his friends police luger (right before he added ivory grips and thought about nickle-plating the gun!)
All of this is my long winded way of saying I believe Still and Datig. I believe that what was true 40 years ago must be true today.
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