Dear All,
One of the most intriguing aspects of studying the Paul Mauser Archive and early Mauser Company Archive, is the tracking of presentation rifles and pistols that Paul Mauser offered to important people.
Specific documentation and evidence is available in Paul Mauser’s diaries and in letters exchanged with the recipients of these special rifles or pistols. In most of the cases, the sale books also track presentation events.
As an example of this interesting study, I have enclosed a set of documents related to presentation rifles offered by Paul Mauser to the German Emperor Wilhelm II.
Paul Mauser met Kaiser Wilhelm II, on several occasions. These meetings lead to a relationship that went well beyond just demonstrating Mauser firearms.
For pistol historians, probably the most important presentations were of a C96 pistol and C96 carbine in Potsdam on the 20th of August 1896. This event is noted in Paul Mauser’s diary of that year and also the glass plates of the C96 carbine and pistol showing them before and after testing. These are available in the Paul Mauser Archive.
In this example, you see one of the 4-page letters written by Paul Mauser for communication to Kaiser Wilhelm II. To be more precise here, Paul was not writing directly to the Emperor but rather to his Imperial correspondent the Emperor’s Wing Adjutant Graf von Moltke.
This letter is quite interesting because tells us that Paul prepared a special hunting rifle for the Kaiser that was ordered as a gift by his wife the Empress and Queen of Prussia Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. As a consequence of the rifle’s satisfactory hunting results, Paul Mauser subsequently received another request to offer to the Kaiser a special Target Rifle in 6mm caliber.
In the attached photo, you see the first page of the 4-page letter. The next photo shows Kaiser Wilhelm II proudly standing by one of the deer he took with the rifle. Finally, the record of the Special 6mm rifle in the Original Mauser sale book for the year is shown.
It is interesting to highlight the importance of this small caliber rifle. From 1895 until the finalization of the 98 action, in cooperation with the German GPK acceptance committee, Paul Mauser experimented with several small caliber rifles including versions in 4mm, 5mm, 5.5mm, 6mm and 6.5mm.
The full letter translation as well as additional samples of presentations pistols and rifles are available in the Paul Mauser book. More information here:
www.paul-mauser-archive.com
Mauro Baudino
Mauser Company and Firearms Historian
www.paul-mauser-archive.com
www.theparabellumisback.com www.lugerlp08.com