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I saw a pimped out P-08 today. It belongs to my 85 yr old barber. he brought it back from WWII. It looks like the standard Luger other than it's Nickel plated. It's immaculate. Not a mark on it. Some parts are gold plated. The trigger, extractor and some other small parts. The grips appear to be hard rubber. Finely checkered, and black.
I don't know about Lugers. He has never fired it and doesn't care for handguns. Said he could never hit anything with a pistol. He said all anyone ever needs is a M1.
He keeps this in a safety deposit box and will give it to his son. It's not for sale.
On top of the gun it's marked byf. S/n 1159 with the # 59 on all small parts. It was plated in Europe, before he brought it home in 1945.
He doesn't have or know any history of the gun. He got his hands on it and the holster in Italy before being shipped home after the war. He also managed to bring home a German Dress Dagger.
Can anyone venture a guess what a pistol like this might be worth....?
What? No spinner wheels? You call that "pimped" without the spinners?
Interesting gun. Some of the edges don't seem as sharp as they should be but some of the markings are still pretty crisp even given the plating. If it was plated before it was sent back home, are you sure the germans didn't plate it originally?
If it was plated by Mauser at the factory, and honestly I can't imagine anyone in recently liberated Italy doing it, I'd say it would be worth a good bit. It may have been done up that way for presentation to a dignitary or officer during WWII. "Liberated" may be a bit generous for 1945 Italy ... maybe I should have gone with "Allied Occupied".
That gun really needs an expert's view. I'm not even going to hazzard a guess. Apparently, some of the '42 date coded Mausers were made under contract in Portugal. Perhaps they plated it? If it's Portugese, I can't imaging it being worth a lot.
What I can imagine though is a bunch of guys in a Portugese factory, kicking out Luger's at the end of the war and nickel plating them, then selling them to GI's as Hitler's personal sidearm.
... I love poetry, long walks on the beach, and poking dead things with a stick.
Looking at the photos, I would venture to say that it was european nickel. The marking are too crisp to have been replated. My dad used to have a k98 that was identical to the finish of the luger there. It was for some type of parade purposes. He sold it many years ago because it was bad luck(everybody who ever owned it went into deep financial troubles or death.) If you can take it apart, look for inscriptions of soldier's name as his k98 had. It would make it worth a little more.
Rimfire Mcnutjob,
Where would a group of Portugese factory workers have gotten gold by the end of the war, the Nazi criminals would have made off with it all by then.
Would have been worth big $s.
But with all that stuff lying around at the
end of the war it's easy to see how
some people got to feeling a little creative
jb
jasonB " Another Dirty Yankee"
" Tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?"
Could still be worth big bucks - really, really big bucks, if it had solid provence (sp?) tracing it back to a custom order, especially if it was from someone famous. If it was just someone dressing up a war trophy, on either side of the pond, it just made it into a fancy shooter...
From 1941 to early 1945, byf was a production code assigned to the Mauserwerke, Oberndorf factory (changed from the numeric code "42" used in the build up to and early part of the war). Apparently that is a matching serial numbered wartime gun manufactured in 1942 by the parent Mauser factory. The main question is "who did the plating"? In 1942 Germany was going full blast in war material production and would not have been doing many guns in finishes other than blued. This is not saying that they could not have produced a few for presentation purposes, but a professional appraisal should be obtained to determine potentially considerable value if done by the factory.
Oh Gosh... byf/42/black plastic grips ---- Is was on of the "Black Widow" Lugers. They bring a premium price. Looks like it was plated by a Mexican bumper shop. It is an aftermarket plate job for sure and for certain. The polish not not awful, but is it isn't great either. I have very sincere doubts if the old gent brought it back in that condition. Take a look at the fit of the gold magazine release and the back pin of the side plate to what the polish has done to the fit. A bad case of "gaposis". The heavy hand of a less than expert polisher is as plain as rat dropings in the sugar bowl, to quote Skeeter, quoting D'Albini.
I have seen more than one "liberated" Luger done up in nickle/chrome/gold like that one. I had a couple of factory nickle Luger magazines, that I assume came from a factory nickle pistol, and the degree of polish was not near as high. It was just nickle on the standard factory metal finish.
Charles wrote:Oh Gosh... byf/42/black plastic grips ---- Is was on of the "Black Widow" Lugers. They bring a premium price. Looks like it was plated by a Mexican bumper shop. It is an aftermarket plate job for sure and for certain. The polish not not awful, but is it isn't great either. I have very sincere doubts if the old gent brought it back in that condition. I have seen more than one "liberated" Luger done up in nickle/chrome/gold like that one. I had a couple of factory nickle Luger magazines, that I assume came from a factory nickle pistol, and the degree of polish was not near as high. It was just nickle on the standard factory metal finish.
Yep, the numbers (BYF 42) match the fabled "Black Widow" series (fabled as in it was a Ralph Shattuck marketing tactic) ------ only prob is those were supposedly all blued
Who knows --- old firearms often have several stories behind them
It would have been a nice (and valuable) gun if it had not been abused by plating... As it is now, the luger is worth about $600 to $700 as a shooter. It currently has no collector value.
None of the luger factories (including Mauser) made "custom" lugers during the war, and NONE were factory plated.... There were no luger "presentation" pieces (despite Uncle Fred owning Hitler's very own luger...). Many lugers were plated in Europe after the war when for a couple of packs of cigerettes or some food, you could have plating, engraving, etc... done. Many GI's thought that plating and other things made them look better...
If you want some real expert opinions go to: http://forum.lugerforum.com/ There are a number of true luger experts there that are happy to share their knowledge.
That gold was not put on there " for a couple packs of cigarettes "
I still think gold would have been in short supply right after the war
The real story will probably never be known.
But the Nazi's were known to make use of everything from occupied countries, and whatever gold was about would have been spirited away.
JD2 wrote: Many GI's thought that plating and other things made them look better...
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Yep-- when your 20 - 25 years old, its crazy to worry about the value of your war trophy 60 years from now. Most probably never envisioned a life for these outside of a red velvet lined display case ----- much less what their grandchildren could get for it at an auction
