I chose blue background for mine, however, after seeing the results from Ron Smith and Bill foehl, I am leaning towards a light tan, the burlap / color that Ron usues is very photogenic for the lugers.
I find red makes the bluing color seem "wrong" and yet my mom, my wife and a good friend liked how the lugers looked in the book with red backgrounds...
Also, for every 10 pictures I take, i get about 1 or 2 good ones
ed