Quote:
Originally posted by Big Norm
J....that this is one of the reasons that I am leary about buying Krieghoffs...
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Norm,
I'm not certain that's a Krieghoff specific statement. Any casual collector of virtually any Luger variation - runs the same risk of being "taken", whether it's a bogus Krieghoff or a "boosted" Luger from any era (which really are the same, IMHO). Whether it precludes some from learning what is "correct" and "incorrect" is up to that individual. For that - there is no substitute for looking at as many in one variation as possible - and where information is sparse, keeping somewhat complete notes on active research on minute details.
As for me - I've enjoyed collecting HKs for now over 20 years, and I too, own "a few" - and for that, I've seen my share of "late production" Krieghoffs (like "1960" manufacture
). However, rather then withdraw from collecting that variation altogether, I'm rather conservative in what I'll accept as "correct". As for the mag release itself, it's well documented as to being correct in fire-blued and strawed. Over the past decade - that has been narrowed down to fairly accurate estimations of the percentages of either for each HK production year, which are purely based on verified pieces. Is that analogous to actual production? Probably as close as we can get given the few examples that survive "unmolested" today.
As well, and as with the toggle - there are other signs as to the veracity of the part and whether it should be correct or not. In that way - I don't see Krieghoff's as more prone to being "boosted" or "counterfeited" any more than many of the other Luger variations that exist today. In in some ways - I could argue that they are less prone - given the difficulty of forging the tell-tales of how the factory original HKs were manufactured.
'Course - I am biased on this subject
John