The First Luger

[Ron Wood]

Originally Posted by Mark1

Ron,
The vendors are describing this gun as a transitional/trials/Swiss/presentation model. The connection to Switzerland seems to be only the address of the previous owner.
I have always understood the earliest verified Swiss trials gun to be no.26 in the Pattern Room collection now in Leeds.
What do you make of the claims here ?
Mark

Surprisingly, there are a small number of surviving early Swiss prototype (1898) and pre-production (1899) guns. Many of the authentic survivors have had modifications that were applied during the time that they were being evaluated by the Swiss, Dutch and British. Not surprisingly, there are also a significant number of forgeries of this series. The known surviving serial numbers, authentic and fake, have been cataloged by Görtz and Sturgess. The highest serial number known is 40, and it exists in essentially as manufactured configuration.

I do not care to comment one way or the other on the vendor of this piece, I will let that for others. I can and will make a couple of observations on the gun itself (as an aside, there exists another serial number 8 example that has been proven to be a forgery). As presented, the wording of the ad would lead us to believe that the serial numbers of these early pieces were not chronologically sequential, a statement of conjecture that I do not believe is supported. Under that premise, the notation of the configuration of this piece as “pre-hold open” would stand up. But, given that serial numbers 5 and 6 that still exist and all other authentic pieces in this series possess a hold open calls that claim into question. There are a few other minute details that, to my eye, are incongruous with the other authentic pieces in this early series. I do not care to elaborate but, as I said before, it requires considerable scrutiny to pick up on the nuances.