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death head luger

35K views 87 replies 28 participants last post by  CBrown 
G
#1 ·
I have just came into possession of a mint death head luger all matching with deaths head marked holster the capture papers and documentation from the vet who brought it back to the 2 owners afer he sold it.
I also have a letter from a Hrr Kornmayer staff editor as of 6-1989 of the deutesches waffen journal talking about this luger and that there are only 5 known examples of a death head luger known.
What I was also told was that these pistols were issued to the commandants of the various concentration camps,what I am wanting to know is does anybody know if this is in fact the case.
IM trying to track down the captain's records who brought the gun back as to his unit.
The capture paper shows his unit as f.a hq. 5th t.d. gp which i cant figure out
any help would be great.
The clip in the gun matches the xtra one is a 3 digit number the take down tool is marked 42.
I also have a picture of the exact holster pictured in military holsters of ww#2 being out of the ralph shattuck colllection.
I do have photos however Im having a hard time trying to get the macro setting to get close enough to focus on the ss proofs so they come out clear enough.
One last question what would a ballpark figure on a value??
thanks again

military-1
 
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#2 ·
Mark, welcome to the forum! I changed your location to USA.

There are scores of fakes, all with stories of how true and proof they are real. Not to say some are not true pieces, but... Also, they are NOT for concentration camp commandants, that one is real bull****...

Take pictures from slightly farther away (with plenty of light and then crop down).

Ed
 
G
#3 ·
thanks for the advice on the pictures as for the gun being the real deal i have contacted the person who had obtained it from the vet back in 89 he made me quite a hefty offer to get a chance to get it back.
I know about fakes as ive tried to collect german helmets etc and most of these items are junk
 
#4 ·
military-1



Mint death heads lugers are as phoney as the day is long, tired looking ones are equally phoney.

To use a letter under the guise of an respected name in the luger collecting community such as Herr Kornmayer as a backdrop for the deutesches waffen journal magazine article is disturbing.

Herr Kornmayer is deserving of considerably more respect than the connotations of the letter.

It is beyond me that if someone posseses a rare variation of a suspect luger why all the associated papertrail.

This is generally a front to help put some sort of validity to the luger.

You may not be the culprit to try and dupe us unknowledgeable collectors , however not enough seriuos documentation exists on the death head stamp nor the provenence to prove the authenticity of the concentration camp innuendos to which you were provided with.

Literally hundreds of thousands of lugers were produced for the German war machine with several concentration camps in occupied Europe. Are we to believe that the elite of the SS camp hierarchy were the only ones to receive these lugers while the murderous guards and fellow SS officers bore none. A survival rate of five is to low.

The totenkopf insignia may be a given but I suspect that the lugers validity is as questionable as the author of the coined phrase Black Widow.

Will wait for your photo's.
 
G
#5 ·
you know all i did was ask about a gun that I didnt know too much about why am I attacked just for asking information.
It just kills some people that maybe someone other than themselves could ever get anything like this.
its too bad that soo many experts who have no life have to attack everybody who askes a qustion.
you make assumptions whithout knowing anything
I guess if i produece the vet who brought it back that still wouldnt be good enough.
you need to get a life and figure that maybe someone other than yourself might find one of these.
have a great life
 
#6 ·
Actually, I don't think James meant it as an attack, but a blunt educational tool. However, folks are damn set on getting rare items, and death head lugers are almost always fakes. Obviously, James feels they are all fakes...

I think your way of throwing out well known names, was taken as a sign that you were trying too hard to prove the authenticity of the item and the concentration camp story might have rankled some nerves, lots of SS item and SS want-to-be's bothers some folks.

Provide clear pictures and wait for in-coming, as a piece like this is usually fake.


Ed
 
#7 ·
Mark, Get a little thicker skin to ward off bites or stay on the porch with the little ones. James is not necessarily attacking you. This is an educational Forum and one must be prepared to pay tuition.
There are many knowledgable people here who have heard a lot if not all of the stories associated with death's head Lugers et all.
That being said, I agree with Ed. Post some photo's and we will see what we will see.
I am particularly interested to view your death head marked holster. These are genuine articals since they have shown up in period photographs. Not that yours is or isn't, I have not seen it yet. The one I am aware of was being worn by a city Policeman if I can recall correctly.
So don't be put off....jump back in and learn like the rest of us!
Jerry Burney
 
#8 ·
Ed

Thankyou for the support.

military1--I have a good life and part of that comes from not bieng to naive and the ability to know when something is wrong.This did not happen overnight.You were asking about your luger and you got the hard cold facts.

You were not attacked, I believe you were snookered by the people that sold you the luger.

If you wished to be soft soaped then this is not the place.

Should you continue to feel attacked I will delete the post.
 
#9 ·
Gentlmen all, I cannot help but think we are going about this in a ham handed fashion. I am all for calling a spade a spade but I think keeping it civil and couching our criticisms in a Friendly manner would go a small way towards not only fostering an interest in our passion but maintaining fresh blood in our circulatory system. Which is small to say the least.
Pissing on ones parade and calling it rain is hardly the way to endear ourselves. While these little spats can be entertaining in themselves, they lead to nowhere concerning our quest to gain Luger knowledge. It's my humble opinion that new members should be encouraged to tell their story and it is our duty to inform where possible but keeping the motto of the State Patrol in mind: Polite but firm.
At the very least we are passing up the opportunity to observe some new achievement, either by the Germans or WaffenfabrikAmerica.
Jerry Burney
 
#12 ·
military-1......... IMO one of the main reasons for this FORUM is to seek and provide information and opinions. When one seeks info and then is not happy with the reply I really don't think attacking the messenger on a personal level is the proper response. Disagree and give facts or reasons but a reply like yours adds nothing to the discussion nor the search for knowledge and true history.
 
#13 ·
Mil-1...

Sorry you got off on the wrong foot with the guys here, but the question of the authenticity of DH lugers has surfaced here and at the shows for years and the general concensus is that there are way too many fakes out there being offered as "SS marked lugers".

Now, I can guess that the Vet was in one of the Field Artillery regiments of the 5th Tank Destroyer Group, attached to Patton's Third Army. The 3rd Army did head into Germany so it MIGHT have had some contact with the Concentration Camp SS. On the other hand, would the Field Artillery have done that kind of work? I don't know, but the 5th TD Gp. must have unit histories that would mention it if they did.

Now, you didn't mention if the pistol is a WWI or WWII....there are NO WWII mfg (post-WWI to 1942) SS lugers that I have ever heard about, but there ARE some post-WWI lugers marked with a DH for possibly the Freikorps or other units as mentioned in the other posts. Photos would go a long way to helping everyone ID this luger for you.

The letter from Herr Kornmeyer mentioning FIVE lugers with the DH on them would have been the WWI variety I believe. Fred Datig, one of the early authors, in "The Luger Pistol" mentions them as possibly WWI from the "Death's Head Hussars" or from the post-WWI Freikorps....he mentions that WWII SS marked items usually had the double lightning flashes of the SS on them and the two above possibilities had a sideways "lazy S" above the skull.

Datig goes on to inquire and we would also, if the pistol in question is a matching numbers, has mismatched parts, or a replaced barrel or some commercial proofs on it in an attempt to date the manufacture or reworking of the pistol and when it might have recieved the DH stamp.

You may have a WWI luger so marked and it may be either the DH Hussar or Friekorps one so mentioned. Or you may have a product of what many have come to refer to as "Waffenfabrik USA"....the products of one or more highly skilled fakers who produced this for many years.

Your Vet story gives the chain of ownership theoretically back to WWII so that might give additional weight to it being one of the DH H or Freikorps marked pistols, but if we don't have some pics of it we can't help you out. You either have a very interesting and rare variation of a WWI pistol or post-WWI pistol or it's a modern fake. If it IS one of the former, then it is not an "SS MARKED" pistol, it just happens to have a logo on it that is similar to a WWII outfit.

If you want to know what you have, post the pics and the guys will be able to tell us all about this pistol and what it IS and what it ISN'T. Please don't get upset one way or the other. One of the problems encountered in the past is a Vet either makes up a story for his family how he "liberated" the pistol in battle (when he traded cigarettes for it with someone) to make a better story. Another version is he had ONE pistol and then he got ANOTHER and the story about the first got transferred to the second. This is not an attack on YOUR Vet or any other, but the term "War Stories" has often shown us reality being stretched, bent or broken for the sake of a good story.

Since the Vet was in the Field Artillery of a Tank Destroyer Group, his being into a concentration camp early enough to capture a Camp Commandant and liberate his Luger is a hard one for the board to swallow and I find it a tough sell myself.

We all look forward to seeing the real deal and equally look forward to helping to identify a fake if only to educate each other on what to look out for. Nothing personal involved, but we all tend to get defensive when our post gets less than rave reviews.....good luck with yours and I am looking forward to seeing the pics and the answers the guys will post on it.
 
#14 ·
Chuck, I commend you for a thought out and intelligent post. This is the tone and the type of post that encourages discourse, especially among first posters. Too many times we forget to realize that we might be discouraging new members unnecessarily. This is a very small society of like minds and it helps us all to interact like we enjoy what we are doing. KUDO'S!
Jerry Burney
 
#18 ·
This is why I am a proud member of this Forum. I have made a few etiquite errors(GASP!) here over the years and have then come to realize the gravity of such. I am sure something will strike me as it did Lou and I will do the same again, but I have some levelheaded Brothers who will bring me back to my senses. If Mark has done nothing else he will have helped a few of us realize learning should be fun. It's really not that serious.
I look forward to the original post coming to life...Jerry Burney
 
#23 ·
Dear Mark:

I grew in Puerto Rico and there is a saving that says: El Pedro que ladra no muerdre!

In English is means: The Dog that growls doesn't bite!

On our board with many friends that are more than willing to help but sometimes growl!

Regards,

George
 
#24 ·
quote:Originally posted by me

My friend Jerry is on dial up, if large, send them to me and I'll post them for you;
Ed

PS: Jerry sent them to me, as I know how to shrink them and psot them easier than Jerry. All the death head holsters I ahve seen were WW1, this is obviously a WW2, but I am no expert on it...
I left them all fairly large so folks can take a look for themselves...


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#25 ·
I want to thank Mark for providing these photo's and Ed for posting them.
I have taken a good look at this holster and at first thought the death head on it looked good. I was only able to open small portions of the photo so could not see the whole holster front untill this morning.
I do not believe the stamp is an authentic period emblem. It is much too large. I have observed several of these emblems placed on WW1 or Weimar holsters in my shop and all have been quite a bit smaller.
I will let some who are more knowledgable than myself weigh in on the pistol markings. From what I have been able to read however it is highly improbable. No matter, it will be an interesting thread and hopefully educational for us all. Thanks, Jerry Burney
 
#26 ·
Hi,

As comparison, a Death head marked luger holster which spent some time in a Dutch collection. You can clearly see the difference in style, not making the discussion easier, I'm afraid.

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I took the liberty to play with the images a bit, in order to get a better comparison. It's clear to see that the actual design and shape of both stamps differ.

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Ed: Is it possible to post an enlarged section, showing the markings on the pistol? In addition, does the barrel have any markings underneath it? Any chance of photos of the inside of the grips? And of the toggle/chamber area?
 
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