Norton Gallery visit 45 ACP Luger

[Edward Tinker]

I traveled to Louisiana for work this last week and flew into New Orleans. Figured, hey, I am only 347 miles form Shreveport and the Norton Galleryâ?¦ So I went on a rather long road trip. It was wonderful and also anti-climatic.

Here are pictures of the gallery from the outside, because as soon as I walked up with my camera they said, â??Hello, can I check your camera for you?â?�

<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/norton_gallery_2.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/norton_gallery_2.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>
<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/norton_gallery_1.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/norton_gallery_1.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>
<a href="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/norton_gallery.jpg" target="_fullview"><img src="http://forums.lugerforum.com/lfupload/norton_gallery.jpg" width="400" alt="Click for fullsize image" /></a>

Let me bore you with a few non-gun items. There are lots of rooms of non-gun items, it is a true museum. I met Jerry Bloomer and he was friendly and spent a good 20 minutes with me. A true gentleman! There is a huge room with Remington sculptures, and several other rooms with western sculptures and paintings. In addition there are numerous rooms, some very large with two that I really liked, an artist named Peter Ellenshaw that had depth and realism to them, and also a British painter named Felix Kelly with a bunch of southern scenes that were as breathtaking as Mr. Ellenshaws in realism and detail.


There is only one room with guns, that is about 12â??x12â??, all pistols, all C&R, all displayed nicely and with lots of nice lighting. There are usually 3 pistols to a case and behind glass. Seeing the 45 Luger was a bit anti-climatic. It is displayed on shelf easily seen, but the way the display is set up, the barrel is obscured with a glass rod to help display it. A suggestion I have is this; A great way to compare it against another period Luger, would be to have a 9mm one shown against the 45 luger, show the ens of the barrels pointing towards the visitor to see the difference, and then the magazines out to show the size difference of the two magazines.

The gun itself is in very nice shape. From previous pictures I have seen, (to include the one that is in the pamphlet you can buy for $3.50, called Artistry in Arms), the gun looks almost in too good of shape to have been a test piece. In real life it displays a fine almost brownish hint to the bluing, a deep patina of age (the strawing is still very good). Further, there is a funny wear mark on the front grip strap, it is about the size of a quarter, an odd marking / wear mark, yet reasonable proof to me that the gun has never been reblued.

There IS a â??GLâ?� on the rear of the toggle, and the magazine is marked on the rear, closest to your hand on the bottom of the magazine with a â??3â?�. This has led to the speculation that this is number three of three test guns. There are NO other markings on the gun, no DWM, no proofs, no acceptance. I was surprised at the lack of a DWM on the toggle. Overall it appears to be a â??normalâ?� 7.65 or 9 mm but you can see that the toggles are larger, the barrel is thicker, etc.

The rest of the guns in the room are a hodgepodge of mostly pre-WW2 beauties also. Several Borchardts that have been engraved, and also with Ivory, a Nambu, a Nambu cut-a-way, a Baby Nambu, several Luger Carbines, some engraved, some not, Mannlichers, and Mannlicher Carbines, Bergmanns, etc. Displayed is only a small number of the collection, there must be 60 guns displayed and the booklet said that the exhibition in 1971 was with 193 guns, and Jerry told me that there are many more that are never displayed. Mr. Norton had an amazing collection! There are many that get excited over some rare guns being engraved later, but they are all tasteful and beautiful guns.

Overall, it was worth it to drive for 700 miles roundtrip (I stayed overnight), next time, I sure would like to get some assorted pictures of the Luger, somehow I doubt theyâ??ll let me take her shooting,

Ed