re: midwest firearms

[Johnny Peppers]

The touched up, reblued, or out and out faked pistols are not in the shooter category. Some are very high priced, and are out and out fraud.

Several years back I had the chance to examine a 1900 Bulgarian which is extremely rare in original condition. The pistol was brought to a friend of mine for evaluation. First, the pistol which was in 98/99% condition did not pass the Mini-Maglite test as there was no oxidation under the finish. OK, maybe it had been stored heavily oiled since it's day of manufacture. The pistol was then gone over with a lighted 10X magnifier and several tiny areas of pitting were found that were blued over. These could not be seen with the naked eye. My friend and I both agreed that it was not correct, and probably wasn't even an original Bulgarian. The pistol was priced at $8000, and against our advice was bought anyway. The pistol was shown to Charles Kenyon a few years back and he pointed out a mistake in the safety marking. These fakes are very good and very very hard to distinguish, and above all are not cheap. If you are going to spend your hard earned money, be sure of what you are getting no matter what your level of expertise is.