Lugers in America?

[Olle]

Originally Posted by Edward Tinker

Tens of thousands were destroyed in the wars and then tens of thousands (probably several hundred thousand) were destroyed by the allied commission, there are facts on them destroying many.

Same in ww2, many were brought home, but many were destroyed by fire, tanks, etc after the war and were turned in?

Then we have heard the stories of thousands being dumped by our allies, the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, etc that weren't allowed to bring them home and were dumped overboard. Let alone the tens of thousands that were used by the east Germans and then the ones hoarded by the Russians... Lots of those came to the USA, but not all...

Commercially, we are talking less than, what 150 to 200k and a good percentage of them went to the army and police (at least 60k).

I am thinking slightly lower ???

You just have to look at pictures from WWII, where Germans surrendered and threw their guns in large piles. A lot of these were destroyed, buried, thrown in lakes etc, because it just wasn't worth the time and effort to sort them, clean them, oil them, crate them and find them a new home. I'm sure a lot of these were't even accounted for, it was easier to dispose of them right there on site instead of filling out the paperwork. I would have been extremely happy to do it and I'm sure that the rest of the (almost) 10,000 forum members would line up to help, but it would still be an enormous undertaking.

If you're looking at the total production, it's obvious that there's only a few percent left. Maybe not even that, but exactly how many is anybody's guess.