45 Luger at Norton Gallery

[Hugh]

Stopped by the Norton Gallery yesterday. If anyone gets a chance to visit this place, they should! Fantastic collection of Remington & Russell bronzes and paintings, as well as a "Confederate Gallery", 12 other "galleries" of art, bronzes, crystal, etc. The "Antique Firearms Gallery", has more than 140 rare and unusual firearms including Lugers, Borchardts, Colts, S&Ws, Rugers etc, some of which have been engraved and gold filled by E.C. Prudhomme, famous Shreveport engraver.There are 11 Lugers and three Borchardts, including an engraved Luger carbine with ivory forearm and grips. There are a couple of Luger carbines, and early grip safety models including one with an attached Ideal holster-stock. One unsual one is an engraved Luger that was casehardened after engraving instead of being blued!


Oh yes, saw the 45 Luger, but was not allowed to take pictures. They confiscate your camera when you enter and return it when you leave. Looks authentic to me. However the card by the gun says "one of three" and that it does not have a serial number. According to Michael Reese II in "Luger Tips", there were five made for the 1907 trials. I believe that documentation of this particular gun has been established (see preceeding posts) and that is bears serial #3. The condition of the gun is almost mint, and I wonder what tests it was subjected to in the trials? One unusual thing that I noticed is that the checkering on the grips appears to be 22 or 24 LPI; definitely finer than the standard 20 LPI of normal Lugers.

[DAVID]

I pulled Jones book out and the 45 Luger in the color section is listed as being unnumbered. The one listed on on page 108 is listed as being serial number 2. So if one exists with Serial number 3 that would be new find. David.

[Hugh]

In his book, Reese states that he has personally seen numbers 2 & 5.

[DAVID]

somehow this seems like more than two in existence. David.

[Johnny Peppers]

Hugh,

It is very doubtful that the pistol in the Norton Gallery was sent for the tests. In all likelyhood it was a backup pistol in case of failure of one of the pistols sent for testing.

There have been rumors and reported sightings of these pistols for years, but pistol number 2 and the one at the Norton Gallery are the only ones known to have been viewed by enough people to take the reports seriously.

E.C.Prudhomme was a professional wrestler that turned his talents to engraving. Apparently Mr. Norton was fond of his engraving, but what a blessing that the .45 Cal. Luger was not engraved.

Hugh, As you may recall, all lugers prior to the 1914 addition of the stock lug, have finer grip checkering than the later ones.

David, I'm sure that I read somewhere that 5 M1907/45acp lugers were made for the US to test. Two were destroyed in testing, #2 & #5 are known in collections, which leaves one unaccounted for unless this is the one in Louisana.

[DAVID]

The one shown in the color page in the front of Jones Luger variations is listed as not having a serial number. Do you which one is in the California collection of exotic .45 pistols?? David.

[Hugh]

Tom,


I have run across several sets of 1906 circa grips that had one side with fine checkering and the other side with coarser checkering, and they were all the same side, I don't remember which side was which, but for example, they all had the left side fine and the right side coarser. A couple of these were on a gun, and the others were not. When I first encountered this, I thought they were mismatched, but then I found a pair on a gun that were matching numbers. Maybe the grips were not made in pairs, but one source made "left" grips and another source made "right" grips? I have also seen grips that when they were "cleaned" up one side was a much lighter colored wood than the other one, but had been stained to match. Any thoughts on this?

I don't claim to be an expert on German luger production methods, but from my observations, I would say that an original set of grips installed at the factory, should at least be made of the same color wood and if serialized have the same die set sized numbers in about the same area on both sides. I have sold many a single side grip over the years and in some cases, with the requested number. So I know that there have to be many "matching" lugers out there with replacement grips. Probably one of the easiest methods to tell if the grips are original to a pistol, even if they are unnumbered is by the fit. On all of the unmodified PO8s that I've examined, the grips were hand fitted to the edges of the grip straps perfectly, with no overhang or underage. Last week I just examined a minty 1936 Vet bring back in the "g" block with capture papers, that I know was right, and its grips were unnumbered. So there are definately some exceptions to the general rule of thumb, that military lugers should have numbered grips.

[John Sabato]

Hugh, I no longer own any of the Luger reference books that most of the forum seems to have on their shelves but I seem to recall that the 1907 test trials were detailed in Datig's book "The Luger Pistol."


If the details are not there, I know that they are in print. If not in Luger references, they are surely in one of the references on the 1911 Colt. I remember reading the information on the trials as a young man, and was absolutely agast that anyone could treat fine firearms that way. There was talk of multi-thousand round endurance testing with mud, salt water, wet sand, and dropping the gun with a round chambered into a concrete pit from 6 feet to see if the safety would function under those circumstances! It is no wonder that some test pieces were scrapped when the testing was completed.


Perhaps someone on the forum who collect both Lugers and Colt 1911's has the test trial documentation or statistics they could share with the forum.

Mr. Clark:

Glad you enjoyed your visit to our museum last Friday. I have had sever e-mails to and from John Sabato concerning our Luger 1906 .45 cal. pistol. The gun itself has no serial number but the magazine has the number 3 on it. This "probably" means that the pitsol was the third example produced for the 1907 U.S. Army trials.


In the event you, and perhaps other members of this forum, are not aware of an article on the Luger .45, please see the article "We Shoot the Million $$ Luger" by Garry James in the June, 1994 issue of GUNS & AMMO magazine.


Sincerely


Jerry Bloomer

R.W. Norton Art Gallery

Members of the Luger forum may be interested to know that the Norton Art Gallery has an illustrated catalogue of the major examples of firearms in its permanent collection.


Entitled "Artistry in Arms: The Art of Gunsmithing and Gun Engraving," the 42 page catalogue lists 169 varieties of firearms, 14 of which are different Luger pistols, including the .45 cal. Model 1906. Copies are available for $2.50, plus $1.50 for first-class postage.


We also have a fully illustrated 32 page catalogue of 54 engraved guns by E.C. Prudhomme for $3.50, plus $1.50 for first-class postage.


Orders for the above must be prepaid by check or money order (sorry, no credit cards)and sent to:


R.W. Norton Art Gallery

4747 Creswell Ave.

Shreveport, LA 71106





R.W. Norton Art Gallery