Would You Have Bid on This AE?

[Doubs]

I had considered bidding on this 1906 AE but there was simply too much wrong with it. I called and asked questions that revealed what the pictures don't.

The barrel is a replacement which the auction house noted. It's numbered 992 and the bore is "bright with dark spots". The front sight appears to be a Marble type replacement.

What they didn't note was that the grip safety is broken - likely the spring - and strawed parts have been refinished.

With premiums, the final price is right at $1800 which, IMO, is too much for a shooter.

https://www.proxibid.com/Firearms-Mi...ation/57240147

[sheepherder]

People weeks from now won't have any idea what you're talking about without pics.

Here's two. I don't think the price is that outrageous.

[ithacaartist]

Originally Posted by sheepherder

...I don't think the price is that outrageous.

That's good to hear, Rich! I repaired the grip safety spring on mine, replaced the barrel with a 6-incher, and freshened the straw on the appropriate parts, and am in it at perhaps half of this value.

[sheepherder]

Doubs, I look at it like this: If I were a 'collector' (I'm not), and did not have an AE, I would accept this Luger as a 'placeholder' until I could buy/trade up to a better example. A bird in the bush etc. $1500 isn't all that bad a price. If you're on Proxibid you have to accept their commission. It doesn't enter into what the Luger is worth.

But I'm not a collector; I'm an accumulator. I wouldn't mind buying a Luger such as this. I like the Navy-length barrel. And the price wouldn't bother me. I had thought of lining my coffin with hundred dollar bills but I decided that goose down would be warmer.

[Doubs]

When a nice matching Swiss Luger can be purchased for about the same money, I think $1800 for a mismatched, partially refinished AE with a broken grip safety is quite high. Just my opinion.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Doubs

When a nice matching Swiss Luger can be purchased for about the same money, I think $1800 for a mismatched, partially refinished AE with a broken grip safety is quite high.

Not if you're looking for an AE. If you're looking for just any Luger, than that Swiss is the better buy. Just my opinion.

[Ron Wood]

Most of the time when I see a grip safety like that, it isn't a broken spring, it just wasn't reassembled correctly. Many years ago I bought an '06 AE pretty cheaply at a country gun and tackle shop because the owner thought the grip safety was broken. When I got home it turned out I just needed to properly install the safety.
Ron

[Doubs]

Originally Posted by Ron Wood

Most of the time when I see a grip safety like that, it isn't a broken spring, it just wasn't reassembled correctly. Many years ago I bought an '06 AE pretty cheaply at a country gum and tackle shop because the owner thought the grip safety was broken. When I got home it turned out I just needed to properly install the safety.
Ron

That wasn't the case with my Frankenschloss rework of a long frame 1906 ex-Navy frame. The spring is broken. Whether it left the repair shop that way or broke later, I don't know. It was broken when I bought it and one day I need to send some money to TH for a new one.

[Doubs]

Sheepherder, I already have a very nice matching AE that I bought years ago. So, for a shooter, I bought one of the East German VoPo Lugers and had a 6" .30 caliber barrel installed. Not too long ago I had G.T. install a 4" 9mm barrel on a WW1 Artillery receiver that someone had chopped the barrel off just in front of the rear sight mount. Now I have a shooter that I can swap uppers on and use either .30 caliber or 9mm as I please.

The AE is first and the converted VoPo with the 6" barrel is second. The shooter with both uppers cost me far less than $800 total.

[Heinz]

I believe that 30 is what our late friend Hugh Clark called an Armadillo special.

[Doubs]

Originally Posted by Heinz

I believe that 30 is what our late friend Hugh Clark called an Armadillo special.

About 1995 my father and brother were sitting in the backyard one Summer evening at my father's house. My father nudged my brother and said "Look at that groundhog; he's acting funny". The large groundhog was coming up the edge of the property toward them, moving in an odd way and my father thought it may have had rabies. He handed my brother a .30 Luger and told him to shoot it.

The first bullet was FMJ and passed through without effect. The second bullet was a 90 grain soft nose hollow point that I had loaded for him. It turned the groundhog inside out, stopping it in it's tracks.

Many years before that, my father had told me that a .30 Luger with FMJ bullets was not so good but with an expending bullet was "wicked". I agree.