Another 41 byf

[Quentin]

Originally Posted by alanint

Ask yourself how many hands it has been through since leaving the factory. Any number of people could have cleaned that gun with whatever was handy, including any number of solvents. Some previous owner may have even decided he did not like the white paint in the lettering and removed it purposely.

As you say, anyone could have done it and hopefully it has little impact on the value of this byf.

I've always wondered how many owners this Luger has passed through. Not many, I don't think.

The story told to me by the previous owner (a friend) was that it was brought into the USA in the early 1950s by a German doctor who kept it until his death in the '80s when it was sold to to a fellow who eventually sold it to my friend. I bought it in 1999, which of course is the only thing I can be sure of but I suspect the story is true as it doesn't add any glory or value to the gun.

Assuming that most Lugers were not brought into the US by Germans - I will say I'm curious if the German doctor may have kept his issue gun at the end of the war somehow then brought it to the US later. No way to know of course. Anyway, the important thing to me, no one along the way actually fired this Luger much!

[tharpo]

Wayne,
As I believe that Mauser stopped numbering magazines right around the serial number of your gun I would say that a black plastic fxo or an unnumbered aluminum bottom fxo magazine would be correct.

Tom

[caflashbob]

If they made unnumbered fxo aluminum bottom mags i imagine most were mysteriously matched to similarly correct guns long ago would you think?