Another great day at the auction

[spangy]

Today I acquired at auction another new family member.

LUGER , MODEL: P-08 M23 , CALIBER: 9MM LUGER

Whether or not it can be called a true M23 I will let you decide.

It's not a beauty queen but it has loads of personality ... at least to me.

I don't know that they are rare but they are an uncommon legitimate Luger variation. They are rarely numbers matching by their very nature and definitely re-worked throughout their existence.

Among the first soldiers to use the 9 mm Parabellum pistol were the Finnish "Jaegers" trained in Germany between 1915 - 18. When they came to fight in the War of Independence in the winter of 1918, they brought their small arms with them and this pistol model became widely known in Finland.

In 1922-23 the finnish Army decided to obtain a high quality service pistol for its first-line combat units, and their choice was the Parabellum.

The pistols were acquired from the DWM works in Germany, but due to the Versailles Peace Treaty conditions they were in caliber 7,65mm Para.

The Finnish model designation became 7,65 pist/23.(m/23).

Only at the time of the Winter War was a small batch of 56 P.08 pistols in 9mm caliber bought from Belgium. However, during the war years some m/23 pistols were converted to the 9 mm cartridge by fitting a new barrel and some other parts, recoil spring, etc., drilling the escape gap into the breech block and fluting the firing pin.

The new barrels were generally manufactured in Finland by the Tikkakoski works. After the war this conversion was accelerated as the 9 mm cartridge had become the general standard.

Unit mark on rear strap ... TK 6



TK company

6. Tiedotuskomppania (6.TtusK)
(6th Information Company)
Formed on 18.6.1941 and attached later to Group Oinonen (RO).
Suspended on 10.1.1942.

In wartime Finland, TK companies (the abbreviation TK comes from the Finnish word tiedotuskomppania, "information company") were units under the information division of the Finnish army founded before the Winter War, which were active during the Continuation War and the Lapland War. Soldiers working in the companies were called TK men (Finnish: TK-miehet), whose civilian professions usually were journalists, teachers or advertisers. Some of the men were notable authors, illustrators and radio reporters. They acted as war correspondents, war reporters, filmographers, photographers, illustrators,

In 1938 a group of propaganda men were sent to Berlin, Germany on a study trip. The members of the Propaganda Association were called to additional training in autumn 1939. The subject of the training was putting the men into appropriate activities. 60 propagandists were trained before the Winter War.

In early October 1939 a propaganda department of the military headquarters and a state information center were founded. - The TK men (Finnish: TK-miehet),

The information activity of the Winter War belonged to the propaganda department of the military headquarters. The activity in the Winter War was not as professional as it later became. The TK organization was founded during the Interim Peace from 1940 to 1941.

The idea for TK activity came from Germany, where the director of the information department of the military headquarters Kalle Lehmus became familiar with the propaganda activity and companies of the German army (Propagandakompanie in German). The word "propaganda" had a negative reputation in Finland, so the company used the term "information" instead.

The information companies worked under the supervision of the military headquarters in Mikkeli. The number of companies ranged from eight to twelve. The companies had 339 men at the start of the war and about 150 photographers served in active duty at the front line. The assigned number of men in one company was 40, which included four photographers, two filmographers and ten writers. In reality, companies often had fewer men.

TK images were pictures, drawings, paintings, photographs or films created by TK men or TK photographers. The image material from the Winter War was photographed by the front line soldiers on their own cameras, even though all published material is classified as TK images.


By TK-kuva - SA-kuva, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...curid=74222500


By TK-kuva - SA-kuva, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/inde...curid=74222504

TK men were selected based on their professional skills and their political stance. There were also numerous social democratic reporters among them, but although Olavi Paavolainen tried to convince the chief of the 1st information company Martti Haavio that known leftist socialists artist Tapio Tapiovaara and author Jarno Pennanen should be enlisted as TK men, they were not selected.

In wartime TK men participated in producing propaganda material of the war and its official documentation. The view nowadays is that the TK men recorded a historically valuable inheritance to the progeny.

The SA image archive consists of images from the Winter War, the Continuation War and the Lapland War. There are about 160 thousand photographs from 1939 to 1945 in the archive. Most of them were taken by TK photographers.

TK photographers had to observe things that had military, military historical or ethnological value.

Military and military historical material had to present the Finnish soldier by showing traits and military activities common to him. Photographing disorderly behavior or pranks was forbidden. Photographing demoralizing subjects such as executions or the dead was strictly forbidden. However, it was expected of the photographers to photograph atrocities by the enemy and large enemy losses.

The most important mission of the TK men was news coverage. This meant focusing information about the war and eyewitness reports to the people at home. As well as propaganda, the photographers recorded military history, in particular ethnological subjects after the conquest of East Karelia.

The TK photographers filmed 88 documentary films about the attack and positional warfare phases of the Continuation War. The life of the civilian people at home was also photographed. News reports of the Defense Forces showed areas conquered during the advance to the east in 1941.

The battles to repeal the Soviet Union's great attack on the Karelian Isthmus and the evacuation of the Karelian people were photographed in June 1944. This was done by the photographers of the TK companies at the front line and the TK photographers of the Information Department of the State and of the military headquarters in the capital area.

The activity of TK photographers was strictly controlled, but front line soldiers could photograph freely. Censorship also affected magazine photographers, but not as greatly as it did TK photographers.

TK men moved on the front line according to instructions by the military headquarters, all the way from Lapland to the shores of Lake Onega (Ääninen). Texts were first sent to Lokki in the Mikkeli headquarters, where the stories were examined in the department Tiedotus 1st and then in the Information Department of the State before sending them to magazines.

During the Continuation war, TK men wrote about 8 thousand news reports. Over a thousand texts were left unpublished because of censorship. TK men wrote about battles and the free time of the soldiers. The people at home were attempted to be protected from the reality of the war, and censored texts were too horrible to be read by them. Censorship also slowed news down. For example news about the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk offensive were only published after one week.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TK_company


















notice the unique semi-circular rear sight as opposed to the typical 'V' notch

I will receive the gun in about 2 weeks and will take more pictures of the gun inside and out if you guys are interested.