Anyone see the Simpson's black widow posted today?

[John Sabato]

I'm sorry Ron, I can't buy the one-off custom thing even for a factory exec... the costs involved in creating the one-time use injection mold for the bakelite would be enormous...

The fact that the insignia is slanted and not as it would appear if printed on paper is another issue... I am with the consensus that this would never fly... Just look at the so called "party leader" type grips on the small walthers... the emblem is perfect.

The emblem is absolutely part of the grip and not inlayed or applied. It was part of the mold. IF I had the money and time to create something like these grips, I would use a computer for the design and engineering... they are wonderful tools... I make my living with them. They are also capable of taking a "perfect" emblem and morphing the design so it slants in the direction of the checkering... Need one to slant the other way? no problem... just mirror the image and plant it on the plain checkering... or just morph it from scratch 15 degrees the other way. A set of molds like this would cost several thousand dollars to produce, and would only be cost effective if you were gonna make thousands of grips... I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see the grips start turning up on the auction sites in the near future...

Another thing that doesn't make sense is that Charles Kenyon, one of the top 5 Luger historians and researcher had the opportunity to examine a "unique" set of grips like this but never reported it in his books or photograph them...

What was said about Kenyon not owning the gun, or the grips but still taking a sample of the grip material for a test sounds like snake oil to me...

I know that a few of you members know or have met Charles Kenyon personally...unfortunately, I haven't had the pleasure, but look forward to that someday...

If you know him or how to contact him, just call him and ask him about this... and while you are at it, please invite him to join this forum... I can't accept that he might be so computer ignorant in this day and age that he doesn't use the internet... he should be one of us.

I have a lot of respect for the Simpson outfit as dealers... They stand behind what they sell... Brad Simpson is a member of this forum... but they are not making any claims of authenticity on these grips... and have overpriced the gun just because they can... if it doesn't sell, the price will come down in increments until it does. They will offer for sale what they find and sell it for what the market will bear... they wouldn't put their reputation at risk for a few thousand dollars... that would be foolish business logic.

Look at the border around the checkering... it is too wide to have been made from the same mold as production grips... the imitation grips are not the quality of originals, and don't fit as well. ... likely the same source for those imitation black widow grips a few years ago that sold for as little as $12.00 on ebay...and gunbroker, and gunsamerica, etc.

In closing I will make no bones that IMNSHO, these grips are the product of Waffenfabrik USA, or was contracted by them to be made overseas...

Now give me a few minutes for the keyboard to cool off, and I will tell you how I really feel (within the limits of the Forum Decorum of course! )