Paul Mauser Private Archive

[mauro]

Dear Fellows,
Around one year and half ago, I had the opportunity of buying in Oberndorf part of the personal archive of Paul Mauser.
The archive is composed by different types of documents, diaries, letters, telegram, blueprints, contracts...
These documents are unique and irreplaceable; reading and analysing them is a great honour and a fascinating experience.
With Gerben we started an in-deep analysis of all the documents finalised to the publication of a book about all this material.
Most of the archive is today digitalized and properly organized.
Gerben did and is doing an incredible work, reading and interpreting the old German and the handwritten calligraphy of Paul Mauser.
We are now collaborating with institutions (Waffen Museum in Oberndorf) and collectors in Germany that have others parts of the archive to share as much as we can the information from the different parts, reconstituting the entire set...
After more than one year of analysis of the documents we have prepared a web site that is summarizing the results achieved and the techniques used to manage this material:
www.paul-mauser-archive.com
The web site is today providing some documents from my archive. The amount of documents prevents the possibility of using a web site to publish the entire material. However it is a nice tool to demonstrate the potential of this study.
The web site will be updated with additional parts from the Waffen Museum and others collectors when they will become available, possibly next year.




We are happy sharing this archive with all the fellow collectors.
I hope you appreciate the effort.
I would like to thanks Edward Tinker and Giuliano Alfinito that check the web site consistency and help a lot with the translation.
Enjoy.
Mauro & Gerben

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by mauro

The archive is composed by different types of documents, diaries, letters, telegram, blueprints, contracts...

Thank you for the link!

Will you be posting any of his blueprints???

[Vlim]

The blueprints are difficult to scan, because of their size. Most of them are blueprints of production machines, like lathes and milling machines, dating from around 1890-1895.

[mauro]

What it is interesting is the availability of all the complete set of patent until 1908.
For his 70th birthday, Paul Mauser received from Mr. Korn, engineer, personal friend and patent attorney of Paul Mauser and from Mr. Theodor Schmid a 400-page book containing all his (Paul Mauser) patents. This book has been printed out in a few copies for the Mauser management as well and it is in the Paul Mauser private archive together with some others nice booklets (see “special document” in the web site) and certificates for his birthday.

All these patents are associated with great drawings of all the details.

Additionally, the cross checking between his letters and contracts with the Mauser Company inventory and sales books (today in the Jon Speed collection) allows the possibility of checking if a contract was really fulfilled or not. I mean, it is not always true that what was foreseen in the contract was actually shipped by the Company.

For example, just recently (three days ago) we discovered that the Persian C96 contract was only partially fulfilled. The history of this specific contract needs to be rewritten or at least revised highlighting the discrepancies between the contract and the actual production shipped and kept in Mauser.

What it is really great is that there is an agreement between the different entities (Museum and historians/collectors) to share all the information and clarify and rebuild the entire archive that today is spread at least in three/four parts.

We have to expect nice discovers, but for sure, there is a bunch of work to be performed.


Mauro

[mauro]

Hello Fellows,
The Paul Mauser archive web site has been updated.
In the last period the researches have been focused on the C96 early contracts with new interesting finds.

The first article about the C96 Persian contract will be available in USA in April: Gun & Sword Collector magazine - Volume 34, #3.

In Italy is available since the beginning of March (Armi & Tiro) and in Germany will be available in May (RWM Depesche).

The Paul Mauser Archive web site contains one more gallery focused on weapons, for now only with C96 but will be populated with more guns in accordance to the status of the researches.

http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/c96%20gallery.htm

Please note the important amount of rare documents.

and a new menu related to magazines and articles where you can find information about the status of the articles (researches) and the publication schedule.

http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/articles.htm

http://www.paul-mauser-archive.com/a...20overview.htm

I hope you find this interesting.

Cheers,
Mauro & Gerben

[Don M]

Mauro & Gerben, the sophistication of your web site continues to amaze me.

[mauro]

[SIGP2101]

mauro,

is your website just a marketing/promotional tool or actual archive where we are going to be able to access all those info one day in the near or distant future? So far only access is to the teasers in various categories you promise to provide. Blue prints, patents etc...

SIGP2101

[Vlim]

Well, I wouldn't call it marketing, as there is nothing for sale.

But the website serves more as a showcase, indicating the type of material available and the way we intend to go (which basically is preservation, digitization, analysis and translation).

The amount of info to be analyzed is quite large, and we are doing all this work in our spare time, so don't expect the complete digital version of the archive, with bells and whistles, to be available in the near future

[Michael Zeleny]

Bravo!

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Vlim

The amount of info to be analyzed is quite large, and we are doing all this work in our spare time, so don't expect the complete digital version of the archive, with bells and whistles, to be available in the near future

...Does that mean it will be available in the far future???

In all seriousness, I know the feeling...There are just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything that needs doing, much less things that we enjoy doing...

And it seems that every time I look for an answer to a problem, ten other problems arise...

I don't expect to see your Archive results in my lifetime, but I wish you luck in your efforts!!!

[Vlim]

That said, a first analysis of part of the data, surrounding the C96 Persian Contract, has been published and will appear in the next edition of 'Man at Arms - for the Gun and Sword collector'. (volume 32, No. 3, June 2012).

[mauro]

Dear Fellows,
Let me add some points to what Gerben has already explained.
The Paul Mauser archive contains quite a big amount of data covering different areas as described in the web site.
We are proceeding in the analysis of the documents with two main projects: short term (articles) and long term (books). Additionally in July we will shoot a documentary for the television about the Paul Mauser life but we will provide more information about this project soon.
When new unpublished finds are discovered we discuss if we can simply publish them in an article or they will be part of a book.
For the C96 information, all the new data will be published in articles; in fact books are already available and what we plan to do is clarifying the early contracts with new unpublished information. This is what happens with the C96 Persian contract; these new finds are now available in an article published in USA, Italy and Germany. The article in USA is available since only a few days.
We have also quite a big amount of data about the production of the Mauser pistol model 1910. For this material, that it is fully unpublished, we are thinking about a book. In fact, the material is too big for one or more articles. Considering also the fact that until now there are no books focused on this production... in any case we are still deciding about this specific point.

Here some extract of the C96 Persian article.
The cover of the magazine:

The first page of the article:




Really nice new data have been found about the Italian C96 contract and in general the early contract. The Italian C96 contract will be available in October/November timeframe.
The photo below summarizes quite well the documents analysed...

A short description of the photo.
Starting from the background:
1) The business card of Mister Felice Grondona found in one of the Paul Mauser diary. Felice Grondona was the Italian importer of the Mauser pistols and rifles and also friend of Paul Mauser. Mr. Grondona was located in Milan and he has a crucial role in the contract management with the Italian Authorities. Paul Mauser wrote on the business card also an address; you can easily see it.
2) One of the Paul Mauser diaries where Mauser wrote about a meeting with Felice Grondona for the contract definition. You can see the Paul Mauser note written in black close to the grip of the flat side.
3) One of the letters available between the Italian MOD and Mauser for the contract definition. This letter is from the Italian Navy department to the Mauser company. You can notice when the letter has been posted in Italy (22 September 1908) and when has been processed in Mauser (30 September 1908).
Several letters are available and we can now describe not only the contract itself but also the logistic and the pistol maintenance based on the spare parts request.
4) An early flat side pistol from the original glass plates photos available in the archive. The Mauser Company had a huge glass plate’s photographical archive till the end of WWII containing a huge amount of photos. Some of these glass plates, altough really fragile (glass!!), survived until now and we are in the process of digitalizing them. It is not easy to do with the modern techniques but the quality of the result is amazing.
This is one of the first digitalization results of these glass plates’ photos. The analysis of the glass plated is really fascinating and this specific study should be definitely covered by an article.

[alvin]

Mauro & Vlim, I received my copy today. Read it carefully. Thanks a lot for the excellent article!

Regarding 9mm with 1000m sight leaf addressed in the article, could it be 9x25 Export caliber?? We have never seen a valid 9x19 "Red 9" coming with 1000m sight leaf. If Mauser did make some 9x19 with 1000m sight leaf, statistically, we should see one or two survivors on the market, but we have not yet. One 9x25 listed on checkpointcharlies.com has Mongonia provenance, which was most likely sold there in 1920s.

[mauro]

Alvin,
Happy that you appreciate the article.
I will double check this point in the documents and I let you know... note that Mauser started writing the sight graduation in the productions/sales records from 1927 on.

[alvin]

On page 241 of "Mauser Archive", 1927 inventory list shows 8 instances of "7,63 Cal 9m/m 1000". Since they are rare enough, that would explain why we have not seen them. But the possibility of being 9x25 still exists.

Other 7,63 entries must be Bolo Mausers, came with either 500 or 1000 sight leaves, as we commonly met today.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by alvin

But the possibility of being 9x25 still exists.

Is this the 7.63mm Mauser case with no bottleneck???

[alvin]

Originally Posted by postino

Is this the 7.63mm Mauser case with no bottleneck???

I would think so. The appearance is just like that.

[sheepherder]

IIRC, we had a thread here a year or so ago with a link to a '9mm Mauser' discussing the straight-wall 9mm Mauser C96 cartridge (based on the 7.63mm cartridge) & pistol...I can't find it now, but it must have been interesting...

Wiki mentions it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9%C3%9725mm_Mauser

[Patronen]

Textbook of Automatic Pistols by R.K. Wilson, published in 1943 and I think it was republished again later on has some info about the 9mm Mauser. I believe most of that data was collected in the 30's. The book mentions D.W.M. as producing the cartridge for a brief time. The info may be old and out of date but it makes mention of a Submachine gun at the time in 1934 not yet produced but for a few examples called the Neuhausen that will be chambered in 9mm Mauser along with other calibers.