Collectors, colt vs. luger conditions...

John Sabato · 04-12-2001, 12:35 PM

One of the reasons that American military weapons in private hands are not in the best of shape is that the government tends to release weapons (or did) only when they have reached the end of their useful life.

In those cases where large quantities of serviceable weapons have been released to the public, in most cases, those weapons were purchased to USE, not collect and the quality of what you got is random.

Most of those weapons for sale releases occurred years ago and most of the weapons purchased by private individuals have had many years of use. The few that were received in good shape by collectors are the few that you find today in good shape because they sat on the shelf in the safe, and been handled only with gloves.

Another reason that American weapons in private hands are seldom seen in good condition is that seldom if ever have any of them been "war trophies" because we have never been a conquered nation. The Lugers for example, most have been war trophies or war booty and have been preserved because they held commercial value or would serve later generation military forces. The "bring back" category of war trophies were often just fondled by their captors and their heirs instead of being used up.

Those US origin "bring backs" very likely came back as contraband and seldom if ever saw the light of day unless danger threatened. ...Witness the story I told last week about the .45 war trophy being mailed home inside a lamp from Vietnam...

The fact is that until recent years the U.S. military seldom kept good records about war losses involving weapons so the fact that something is marked US Property is of little consequence unless the weapon is of recent manufacture. So many .45's; Garands, Carbines, etc. have been sold by ODCMP and it's predecessor the DCM that this is a common mark on gun show examples of US military weapons.

One last reason that US military weapons in private hands look bad beside the weapons of our adversaries is that we as a nation decided long ago that our primary objective in military weapons is to shoot reliably, not look pretty. That's why our weapons are Parkerized (phosphate) rather than blued. Our weapons that were blue finished during wartime production was done as an expeditious answer to high volume production when parkerizing would have meant slowing down the production line.

I hope this has been somewhat helpful, (if not longwinded).

-John Sabato (US Army Retired 1967-1988)

04-12-2001, 12:35 PM	#2
John Sabato Lifer Lifetime Forum Patron Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: The Capital of the Free World Posts: 10,156 Thanks: 3,003 Thanked 2,308 Times in 1,098 Posts	Here is an explanation from an old soldier. (long post) One of the reasons that American military weapons in private hands are not in the best of shape is that the government tends to release weapons (or did) only when they have reached the end of their useful life. In those cases where large quantities of serviceable weapons have been released to the public, in most cases, those weapons were purchased to USE, not collect and the quality of what you got is random. Most of those weapons for sale releases occurred years ago and most of the weapons purchased by private individuals have had many years of use. The few that were received in good shape by collectors are the few that you find today in good shape because they sat on the shelf in the safe, and been handled only with gloves. Another reason that American weapons in private hands are seldom seen in good condition is that seldom if ever have any of them been "war trophies" because we have never been a conquered nation. The Lugers for example, most have been war trophies or war booty and have been preserved because they held commercial value or would serve later generation military forces. The "bring back" category of war trophies were often just fondled by their captors and their heirs instead of being used up. Those US origin "bring backs" very likely came back as contraband and seldom if ever saw the light of day unless danger threatened. ...Witness the story I told last week about the .45 war trophy being mailed home inside a lamp from Vietnam... The fact is that until recent years the U.S. military seldom kept good records about war losses involving weapons so the fact that something is marked US Property is of little consequence unless the weapon is of recent manufacture. So many .45's; Garands, Carbines, etc. have been sold by ODCMP and it's predecessor the DCM that this is a common mark on gun show examples of US military weapons. One last reason that US military weapons in private hands look bad beside the weapons of our adversaries is that we as a nation decided long ago that our primary objective in military weapons is to shoot reliably, not look pretty. That's why our weapons are Parkerized (phosphate) rather than blued. Our weapons that were blue finished during wartime production was done as an expeditious answer to high volume production when parkerizing would have meant slowing down the production line. I hope this has been somewhat helpful, (if not longwinded). -John Sabato (US Army Retired 1967-1988)