Looking for a Luger reference book... any recommendations?

[RylanBrissette]

Hello everyone,

I am interested in military Lugers. Primarly those from the third reich era. I was wondering what is one of the better reference books out there? The only one I know of is "Lugers at Random". What would be a good book for me? Because I feel I lack knowledge on Lugers and I would like to read up on them as much as I can.

Thanks for any suggestions, where I can find the book would also be helpful.

Cheers,

[Mike B]

Greetings Rylan,
If you can find one, "Third Reich Lugers" by Jan Still is an excellent source.

Mike

I noticed after I posted this there is one on ebay:

http://search.ebay.com/search/search...ers&category0=

[Edward Tinker]

reading this sticky thread in the new collector area might help also;

http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...&threadid=6937

[Lugerdoc]

Rylan, "Lugers at Random" is a very good place to start for the beginning collector. I still use it a lot and I've been at it for 50 years. I have these in stock, new @$65 + $&H. Still's "Third Reich Luger" is definately the most up to date and detailed infor on this area, if you can find one. Tom

[RylanBrissette]

Originally posted by Edward Tinker
reading this sticky thread in the new collector area might help also;

http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...&threadid=6937

Darn you caught me, I am now "one of those guys" who doesn't read the stickies, search the forum etc.

Oh well, thanks for the replies. Tom, I will be sending you an e-mail in a bit.

Cheers

[raygun]

Originally posted by Mike B
Greetings Rylan,
If you can find one, "Third Reich Lugers" by Jan Still is an excellent source.

Mike

I noticed after I posted this there is one on ebay:

http://search.ebay.com/search/search...ers&category0=

I notice that Jan Stills books are always highly recomended but apparently out of print . If they are so much in demand can he be persuaded to do another print run ?

I believe Thailand is the place to go for high quality relatively inexpensive printing/publishing . My mate Ian Skennerton gets all his books printed there . Just a thought as costs are always an important consideration in embarking on such a project .

I know I would like a copy of his books based on the recomendations seen here .

[railman44]

After PayPal's promotional campaign, I just bought all 5 of Jan Still's books for $170 each (shipping included) in one purchase on eBay. Four are still in the plastic wrap. I guess the previous owner wasn't much of a reader. I'm not posting this to gloat. I just want everybody interested in Luger research and the definitive authority on Lugers - Jan Still (at least in my mind) to at least try eBay every now and again. Amazon has one of his books (Third Reich Lugers I think) for $600 and change - OUCH!

[Ron Smith]

I once met a Gentleman Soldier from the UK who told me,

"When I was a little lad, my grandma, who was born in 1890, took hold of my hand one day and said, 'This hand held the hand of an old, old man who was a drummer boy at The battle of Waterloo, and THIS cheek was kissed by a soldier who had stormed the Heights of Alma in the Crimean War."

It's simply amazing the people that you meet going through life.

My great grandmother was very proud of the fact that she remembered seeing the top of Abe Lincoln's stove pipe hat, as he walked through a crowd, when she was a little girl.

[Edward Tinker]

Originally posted by RylanBrissette
Darn you caught me, I am now "one of those guys" who doesn't read the stickies, search the forum etc.

We ALL do that, each forum is slightly different and I have looked and not found something and ron or someone else has pointed me in the right direction..

[raygun]

Originally posted by tacfoley
Mr Skennerton is your mate?

Shock and awe, Sir, shock and awe.

MY claim to fame is more tenuous.
tac

I have no real idea of the point , if any, your trying to make tac . Yes I know "skinny" he is a local after all , living in either Brisbane or the Gold Coast most of his life . He was one of the founders of our local arms collectors guild, of which I am a member. I wouldn't have believed it to be any sort of claim to fame ! Its just an australian colloquialism , probably inherited from our London ancestors , if you know someone you call him a "mate"

[Steinar]

I believe Mr Tac would need to be in a battle to draw his sword, that he is just poking a little..

Anyway, my grandmother, spending most of her days within a small village, she didn't meet anyone of historical importance.
But with her hands, in wich she was never able to close completely from carrying string-handled milk buckets, she once picked up a Luger. And that kinda bought me to this forum

[raygun]

Hmmm , still no other suggestions on how we might get Jan Still to re- print his books ?

[Ron Wood]

It costs a lot of money to print a book and not much less to do a re-print. Mr. Still has to weigh the costs of printing vs. potential sales. Compounding the problem is that you can't just print a few copies. There is a minimum number that a printer will accept to print at a reasonable price. Since many of his first printings are in circulation, the initial surge of buying copies of a re-print may not be sufficient to offset the costs of printing in a timely manner. He would be out of pocket for the printing and may not recover his costs quickly enough to keep him from a significant financial burden. I am sure he is crunching the numbers and weighing the odds.

[raygun]

Yes quite right Ron . lets hope he comes up with the right figures !

[mp43sniper]

Does anyone have a review to share of the new Collector Grade Publications Luger book? I have their Sturmgewehr (MP44) book, and although it's "good", half the book is the build up to the MP44 production. I enjoyed that reading, but it isn't what I paid almost $100 for. I'm hoping the new Luger book (which I have only heard about and not seen for sale) is not half a book on Lugers and half a book on other things.

Craig

[Edward Tinker]

this one?

NEW Mauser Pistolen: Development and Production, 1877â??1946
$69.95

by W Darrin Weaver, Jon Speed and Walter Schmid
Deluxe First Edition, 2008
368 pages, 461 illustrations
Mauser manufactured a number of pistols of the firm's own design. These included roughly a million examples of the famous C96 (plus 100,000 selective-fire versions and 1,200 hunting carbines); 500,000 blowback pocket pistols; 80,000 examples of two versions of the tiny 6.35mm WTP â??vest pocketâ?� pistol; and 261,000 HSc pistols.

Over the years Mauser also manufactured several handguns which had been designed elsewhere, including at least 7,800 Reichsrevolvers; 1,000,000 Parabellum (Luger) pistols, including lange Pistolen 08 (â??artilleryâ?� Lugers) for Persia and Siam; plus 340,000 P38s.

In addition, many other pistol models were produced as prototypes only. Many of these photos are from rare glass plate negatives which have never been published before. These include the Mauser C77; the Mauser â??Zig-Zagâ?� revolvers; the Mauser C87 ring-trigger repeater; the C02, the C06, the C06/08 and the C06 + C06/08 hybrid; the large-calibre blowback Model 1909 self-loader; and the Models 1912 and 1912/14 Armeepistole.

During WWI Josef Nickl designed several locked-breech pistols with rotating barrels. After the war Nickl assisted in establishing the Brno arsenal in Czechoslovakia, where his rotating-barrel CZ22 was later produced as the blowback CZ27. Back at Mauser, Nickl then produced a further series of little-known but interesting pistols.

A small series of double-action 9mm pistols appeared in the 1930s, in parallel with the popular HSc designed by Alex Seidel. These included the rotating-barrel â??HSV36â?� and the streamlined Hsv.

Late in World War II two ingenious stamped-frame revolvers and at least two models of stamped-steel Volkspistolen were developed.

The occupying French looted some very interesting pistols before they put the Mauser factory back to work in May, 1945, after which thousands of postwar HSc, P08 and P38 pistols and other arms were assembled, largely from leftover components.

I do not know, but I ordered a copy, will see once it arrives.

ed