Help identify odd Old frame unmarked Luger

[Fusil Finland]

I need help to identify a old frame Luger with odd features. Pistol have only serial number 10055 B and L-shape figure in the rear part of the toggle.

The toggle knobs are in the mid-part.

Unfortunately the barrel was replaced with Finnish Tikkakoski 7,65mm barrel and the upper frame was shorten a bit to fit the barrel. Maybe there was a long barrel and the pistol did not fit the Finnish holster.

Long time ago I owned very much similar 10007 B but I don´t have any pictures left of it to compare.

[Fusil Finland]

I add some pictures of internal numbers etc.

[Fusil Finland]

and more pictures

[Fusil Finland]

Internal numbers 56 and 3

[ithacaartist]

Welcome to the forum, Janne.

Your pistol is interesting, in part due to its strangeness and aspects that would seem to contradict themselves--or at least what one would generally expect to see.

This is indeed a "long frame" gun, and the barrel is, of course, not original to its extension. The "GL" monogram on the rear toggle link was ordinarily applied to prototypes associated with Georg Luger's involvement. The toggle links are definitely the old school arrangement. The breech block sports a hole on the bottom to allow for gas venting in the event of as pierced primer, which is a "Scandinavian feature". If the barrel extension has been shortened to fit the barrel, it is a shame. The use of a coiled recoil spring instead of a leaf spring is notable. The bell crank in the frame needs to be of the type to specifically accommodate a coil spring and its guide, and the frame and upper combo are compatible in this way, despite their serialization's single digit difference. There is, however, a blue "heat stain" on the frame in the area in which this arrangement would be found, and a matching burn mark on the corresponding area on the back of the right grip. This would indicate that some welding has been going on, perhaps to adapt an old model frame to a coil spring recoil system. The replacement barrel's flange has also been messed with, because there's not much of it remaining. The "B" suffix would seem to relate it to this variation (https://phoenixinvestmentarms.com/2146ProtoFBGL02.html)

Let's see what others may add as observations or explanations about this pistol. The GL monogram, if original, is certainly intriguing.

[Grantas]

Reworked in Finland during the 1930's in time for the Winter War.

[Fusil Finland]

Does anyone know more about the strange mid-toggle?

[ithacaartist]

It is a very early form of toggle train, with the knobs part of the front one instead of the rear link.

[jared427]

Interesting that the “B” suffix and GL might have used the same serial number as other commercial non “B”. Here’s one that is listed on Phoenix investment arms. https://phoenixinvestmentarms.com/1594Commercial03.htm

[Fusil Finland]

There is also 10010 and 10010B

https://www.lugerforums.com/threads/...-10010.121110/

[Dwight Gruber]

This pistol is a remarkable example, and deserves serious examination and consideration. Note particularly, the OP’s offhand comment, “The toggle knobs are in the mid-part.” This is an astonishing feature, and leads to an historical digression.

We are all familiar with the fundamental operation of the Luger, a breaking locking system with toggle knobs placed on the rear toggle piece which strike or are otherwise forced upwards to unlock the pistol’s action.

What is not well known, is that in 1903 George Luger applied for a U.S. Patent, granted in 1907, which described toggle ears mounted on the middle piece of the toggle train. Conventional wisdom asserts that this patent was made to forestall a toggle-action weapon to be introduced by John M. Browning, to close any possible loophole which would allow Browning to claim any part of the toggle action.

This has always been considered to be a paper exercise, with no evidence that DWM actually produced an example of this modification. However, two examples of Lugers with this toggle configuration are known. One was profiled in the June 2004 issue of “The Gun Report” in Charles Kenyon’s “Lugers At Random” column. The other was to be found in Ralph Shattuck’s personal collection.

Kenyon briefly profiled a pistol he examined in “the 1980s”; I was able to examine Shattuck’s pistol in 2010. They are explicitly not the same pistol, and crucially neither includes a particular mechanical feature described in the patent. These pistols, and the patent involved, can be reviewed in the aforementioned “Gun Report” article; Sturgess Red Edition p. 1,688; and Charles Whittaker’s “Land of Borchardt” website https://www.landofborchardt.com/1900exp-article.html.

The authenticity of these two pieces can fairly be questioned. The Kenyon gun’s serial number is not reported, and it may not have one. Shattuck’s actual serial number is not reported, although it is described in the “low three-digit” commercial serial range (I was not able to record it). There is no mention of either pistol being in the 10xxxB prototype serial range. Both pistols have old-model dished toggles, however: the Kenyon gun’s toggle knobs are upright and regular as would be expected from contemporary production; Shattuck’s toggle knobs ate “twisted,” skewed backwards (as demonstrated by the orientation of their respective toggle latches). Kenyon asserts that in 1903 the U.S. Patent Office was still requiring functioning models with their patent applications.

Which brings us to the pistol posted here. The posts contain a wealth of photographic detail.

The Old Model frame sn 10055B reveals nothing out of the ordinary for Parabellum prototypes. It has been converted to a coiled recoil spring in a recognized manner. An insert to allow the installation of a standard recoil spring stirrup lever has been brazed in place on the right side of the grip frame. This style of conversion is seen on several frames of this period. At first glance the installation seems cruder than others, but it also appears that it may have been repaired in the field.

Sturgess lists the reported prototype serial numbers on p. 283, Red Edition, and in the surrounding pages pictures several of these guns. Frame sn 10055B does not appear on this list, but its characteristics acceptably match the adjacent numbers. He shows a selection of frame serial numbers themselves; they are sufficiently individual that comparison with 10055B is not revealing.

The upper to this pistol is much more puzzling.

The parts bear the serial number 56. The highest reported prototype serial number is sn 10158B, so sn 10156B (not reported) is at least a rational possibility. The highest number prototypes are reported with short receivers, although this pistol’s old style breechblock and extractor would be an anomaly in this range.

This pistol’s flat-face toggle knobs have 60º face checkering, which had become standard in the 1904 New Model blueprints. The toggle latch looks superficially like the style inletted into the 1904 transitional navy pistol, but is skewed—slanted—back in the style of the Shattuck pistol.

The toggle-tail stamp GL hallmark is so often a forgery as to be legendary. Sturgess on p. 283 Red Edition shows a selection of them, the GL on this pistol is an acceptable match to several.

Nothing in this construction, either separately or together, addresses the unique toggle-break mechanism described in the patent.

All this is not to assert that this pistol’s upper is prototype construction, let alone specifically sn 10156B. Or, that the construction is intended to be a factory representation of the 1907 U.S. Patent. Its circumstances, coming “out of the woodwork” and into Finnish army service, make it necessary to take its origin seriously in ways in which the Kenyon and Shattuck pistols do not,

Any further information is wildly desirable.

Notes:

The pierced-primer gas vent hole in the breechblock is an explicitly Finnish characteristic, it has nothing to do with a “Scandanavian feature.”

Sn 10007B would be by far the lowest reported Prototype serial number, anything you can remember about this pistol would be good to know.

The 100xx commercial serial range and the 10xxxB prototype range have nothing to do with each other. Their contemporary similarity is a coincidence.


Phoenix Investment Arms as source information should be approached with utmost caution.


--Dwight

[JLD1504]

Dwight

To follow up your informative and fascinating insight into 10056B.

I have today examined # 10007 (no B or GL monogram) referenced by Fusil in his original article on this Forum at a museum in Finland. I have posted some pictures and made many mistakes in the narrative posted today on Jan's Forum that I am hoping you and other wise heads will correct! The converted spring job seen today is an even cruder armoury job than that on 10056B! My guess would be both are wartime examples of getting pistols back to the troops by mixing and matching after battle damage in the Winter and Continuation Wars.

Look forward to hearing further comments and corrections - like you this is a fascinating pistol I will see myself next month.

John

[Dwight Gruber]

A relate discussion has appeared on Jan Still's forum https://www.lugerforums.com/threads/...5#post-1079225


--Dwight

[Ron Wood]

As Dwight has noted, this Luger is indeed a remarkable example, perhaps representing the last vestige of the Old Model Luger (toggle lock) and a precursor to the New Model (checkering pattern).

Dwight notes that “The toggle latch looks superficially like the style inletted into the 1904 transitional navy pistol”. I would depart from that observation slightly. The first photo below is the toggle latch on this gun. Although oddly slanted back (first photo), it has the 3-piece latch found on the Transitional 1903 French Test (second photo) rather than the 1-piece latch of the 1904 Transitional Navy (third photo). However, unlike the transitional 03 French and the 04 Navy with their 90º face checkering, the toggle knobs have 60º face checkering depicted in 1904 New Model blueprints, as Dwight has observed, and first encountered on the early “New Model” Navy. That would seem to place the creation of this very unique “prototype” concurrently with or just after the production of the transitional 1904 Navy and before the introduction of the New Model

[Dwight Gruber]

French transitional, of course; betrayed by memory and the mind's eye.


The 60º face checkering appears on the 1905-produceed Dutch trials prototype sn 10130B (without toggle latch) explicitly required to be "altered following the newest arrangements," i.e., the 1904 blueprints.


--Dwight