Borchardt

[Ron Wood]

Tony,

I agree with you, the Borchardt appears to be original in every respect and not "messed with". To my eye, the piece looks reasonably well cared for but it is showing its age. Without actually holding it, I would say that it rates around 90% finish remaining and the straw is mostly gone. It still is a very desirable example, and to find one that has a matching magazine and stock with cheek piece is a real treasure. Tac is probably in the ballpark but perhaps a tad high. I would think that $12,500 to $15,000 might be closer, but in today's market who knows...these things don't grow on trees and the prices are going up every day.

I have a list of known Borchardt serial numbers that was compiled by a very advanced collector, David Eash. I have been adding to it since I received the list and the total now stands at 258. This list includes serial numbers of everything from parts to complete cased sets. This number consists of 158 Loewe examples, and your Borchardt is a number I did not have making a total of 100 DWM pieces.

By the way, forum member â??unspellableâ?� asked in an earlier thread â?� Why would minor production changes necessarily coincide exactly with the name change from Loewe to DWM. After all, it's the same company and they were coming off the same production line.â?� There is an overlap with Loewe and DWM examples intermixed in the very early 1100 serial number range, but I do not know if these early DWM pieces incorporated the minor changes or if they were identical to the Loewe production but with DWM markings. I suspect they had the changes, as I have never seen a DWM that did not.

I hope this helps rather than confuses
Best regards,
Ron