Black Widow Lugers...why so much?

Zeppelin5000

Zeppelin5000

Senior Member
Something I've been wondering... I'm not a Luger expert by any means and maybe I'm missing something, but why do "Black Widow" Lugers sell for so much more than non-black widows even though it's well known in the collecting community that the term was made up by an importer years ago? Anyone can take a byf 41 or 42, put on black unnumbered grips, a black bottom fxo magazine and its a "Black Widow". I can see them selling for a lot a long time ago before people really knew any better, but it's 2022... what gives? This question arises after seeing a byf 42 Black Widow sell for $5K on Simpson Ltd.

So, I guess I take my matching byf 41 that I paid $1500 for about 4 years ago, swap out a couple of items and sell it for double to tripple what I paid?
 
You could do that, but original black plastic grips are hard to find. Not sure what the surge is all about, other than from a collector’s stand point, they are attractive with the black shinny grips. I had both, a ‘37 wood gripped P.08 and a P.08 byf41 black plastic gripped one. Honestly, putting them together, the black grips kinda stood out too much. My P.08 byf41 ended up leaving my collection.
 
It’s not easy to find real black grips, and not all 41’s will be in the unnumbered magazine range to have a correct “black widow”. But you know impatient people will buy a story every time, and black widow sells. I have a byf41 black widow, I’d sell it for 5k.
 
Pure hype. I have a Y block byf41. It's in the correct range for unnumbered black plastic mags bottoms and grips but actually has matching numbered wood grips. The idea that swapping those for a set of black plastic grips could double its value is so far beyond ludicrous it defies understanding.
 
bigwagon said:
Pure hype. I have a Y block byf41. It's in the correct range for unnumbered black plastic mags bottoms and grips but actually has matching numbered wood grips. The idea that swapping those for a set of black plastic grips could double its value is so far beyond ludicrous it defies understanding.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm talking about. My byf 41 is a y block too! SN 1478, unnumbered wood grips and an aluminum bottom fxo mag. But yeah, I'm sure those orignal black plastic grips are hard to find, but them adding that much value to a Luger seems crazy to me.
 
I’m not sure that nickname has been a factor in the desirability or price rise. Many assume so but I don’t see it. The wooden gripped byfs have also really increased in price, I’ve seen several minty ones selling for over 5k in the last year. Greed and supply are always the great equalizers. If prices for minty black grip byfs continue to hit 6-7k (with holster, tool and spare magazine generally) then your will not be able to find a minty wooden gripped byf outside of a stubborn collection because they will all have black grips from lesser condition pieces. Actually this has been happening for at least 50 years as I have known plenty of people who have swapped them out. Like every other category of item in collecting these too will settle out.
 
it's an interesting topic and one Ive been following along with a couple others here.. The envelope will always be pushed by mega-dealers.. Sell something quickly for 2500.00 next time its 3000.00 then 3500.00 and so on.. But, in the last year Ive been watching closely and the Auction circuit is where they really took off.. No reserve type they started brining 4k then 5k then 6k.. I actually saw Tom getting more than pre98 retail at auction... It only took a couple auction cycles for pre98 to adjust now his last BW rig was 6500.00 I think ??? Some things can be explained others cant. It seems markets adjust and who knows when this will end.. I have seen a slight downward trend in 1911's at auction.. Once all the crazy buyers have one or two possibly the rest of the buying public wait it out for prices to come down.. Absolute auctions is the only place you can measure this.. Dealers will always push the envelope on price you can always count on that..
Lugers in general started trending up but, only the 4" military marked types.. All the commercial and odd ball export and foreign made types are waaaaay down from their peak..

One issue with these late byf41 and 42 lugers is the water has become so muddied we will surely lose track of what's correct or not. I know there has been some tracking of this stuff on Still's luger page.

Also just not the luger itself but the mags have been brining 500+ on ebay !!! its nuts..
 
So what kind of spider would the brown wood grips be named after other than a Brown Recluse? I think those big banana spiders you walk into while hunting out in the woods are cool, but they're black. They aren't deadly though as I'd have been dead multiple times already. Does the grip name have to be a spider? How about "Brown Eagle Luger"? A cool guncarnie name, some ridiculous bullshit, a couple shill bidding accounts, and at least two morons with deeper pockets than intelligence and I could set a record I bet.
 
mauser99 said:
it's an interesting topic and one Ive been following along with a couple others here.. The envelope will always be pushed by mega-dealers.. Sell something quickly for 2500.00 next time its 3000.00 then 3500.00 and so on.. But, in the last year Ive been watching closely and the Auction circuit is where they really took off.. No reserve type they started brining 4k then 5k then 6k.. I actually saw Tom getting more than pre98 retail at auction... It only took a couple auction cycles for pre98 to adjust now his last BW rig was 6500.00 I think ??? Some things can be explained others cant. It seems markets adjust and who knows when this will end.. I have seen a slight downward trend in 1911's at auction.. Once all the crazy buyers have one or two possibly the rest of the buying public wait it out for prices to come down.. Absolute auctions is the only place you can measure this.. Dealers will always push the envelope on price you can always count on that..
Lugers in general started trending up but, only the 4" military marked types.. All the commercial and odd ball export and foreign made types are waaaaay down from their peak..

One issue with these late byf41 and 42 lugers is the water has become so muddied we will surely lose track of what's correct or not. I know there has been some tracking of this stuff on Still's luger page.

Also just not the luger itself but the mags have been brining 500+ on ebay !!! its nuts..
Click to expand...

I think some of this is water chumming bullshit by guncarnies ruining our hobby, slowly, while they profit. When the people who are "looked to" as "experts" are trafficking the same things they are "experts" on, (see, e.g., the "Champagne Rune"), then you have a contaminated hobby. We spend 25 years cleaning up the K98k hobby and making it extremely popular, with Bruce and Mike doing The Books, founding The Site, and then roaches scurry out carnival barking and exploiting our work to profiteer off of us. Then after they've contaminated and ruined what we've done they'll move on to another area to pollute. You old school guys know exactly what I'm talking about. That's what happened to CW collecting. Many times new guys who get ripped off or grossly overcharged are done. The hobby then loses. These are simply my humble opinions.

Really, what's to know about the byf 41 and byf 42 other than serial studies on grips, grip numbering, mags, and mag numbering? They are pretty uniform and consistent, just like byf 41 and byf 42 K98ks. Very uniform and consistent in fact, but I'm far from a Luger guy.
 
The B.W.ing of late lugers and as early as 39/40 is nothing new.. But, the question was asked about the newer major leap in price. As I said its been climbing for a few years now and recently increased quite a lot. There are no shortage of these example and the one way to get more is to make more. There are certainly 2x the amount of BW lugers than were ever produced in ww2 IMHO..
There hasn't been a decent book on lugers made since Stills books were released and Tom's new book post dates the increase so it cant be blamed on a book like the G/k increases and K98k increases.
Of Note: Simpsons book didn't seem to do its purpose intended hike for German trainers based on the fact he was the main cause of the high prices pre the book then his dumping of his collection had the opposite effect on the market.. There are many factors in price increases and blind demand is certainly one of them...
 
So I've been wondering this and now I'll ask. Where are all these black grips coming from? War stocks?

FWIW I 'think' I know where all the cool helmets are coming from.
 
I agree that proportionately I have seen a lot more black gripped byfs these last few years, maybe even 15 years than I did back through all of the 1970s-1990s. I was not keeping up with them in the 1960s so I don’t know about that decade but believe it was similar to the 1970s in terms of what was around. I also know that a lot of black gripped Lugers that I have been asked to examine have been fitted with fake or reproduction grips. Many fakes are so good that I can not tell unless I remove them. I also agree that there is much hype around black gripped Lugers by dealers and I believe that there is much hype about the hype so take your pick as to which is most annoying.
 
I think if we search hard and far enough we'll find an advert from the late 60's in possibly American rifleman or other of the first marketing term of the BW luger.. They were plentiful and possibly less sought after and an importer needed to add a catchy name to them to move them along.. I doubt its anymore than that . The repro grips im sure can vary in quality. And like the SS sham-pain-ruin you basically have to destroy one to know if its real. They are made of a form of bakelite. The have a center of ground wood or other ? Its brown and looks like would pressed on a mold with or with out the black coating ? Im really not sure and wont overstep staying what the process really is.. The only other thing ive seen made similar are the rain shields on mid war diensglas. A form of bakelite for sure..

Just like the spare fxo mags with plastic bottoms the grips turned up in armorer tool kits and many spares were made. How many will never be known..
 
When I was coming into my teens, late 50s, early 60s, I was keenly interested in all this stuff.
Local vets, family, friends, etc, were mostly vets and had lots of souvenirs.
I had begun to go to shows and became acquainted with many old time collectors.
At that time, BYF 41 and 42 were considered "last ditch junk" and collectors turned up their noses at them.
Many may remember Ralph Shattuck, an Arizona used car dealer who became an "expert" and marketer of Lugers.
He kept a huge inventory and published a catalog of his wares.
Considered a Luger Guru" by many, a huckster by others.
At any rate he is generally credited for coining the term "Black Widow" to promote sale of this unpopular variation.
Sheeple fell for it en masse.
The internet has spawned a huge interest and demand for artifacts of all types.
BW Lugers have become an icon for no particularly good reason other than they are just another variation with dwindling availability.
Before the internet, you could barely give away a Nambu or Arisaka, now look at them.
Just what I saw in my time.
 
Very common guns that are ridiculously overhyped. I’ve owned 5+ “black widows” and I don’t even look for them. I can’t say that about anything that’s actually even approaching rare
 
Rarity doesnt always mean high prices.. You can have a truly rare item but, if there is no demand for it than there is no value... Value is determined by need of such item or demand..
BD88 your only crime was selling the 5 you owned before the price hike... LOL typical rookie mistake...:LOL::ROFLMAO: hope you invested the cash into franklin mint collectibles...
 
wealthygorilla.com

The 20 Most Expensive Beanie Babies in the World

Which are the most expensive beanie babies in the world? Beanie babies! Yup, we’re talking about beanie babies. Now, they might not be everyone’s cup of tea, however, there’s no denying they were a massive thing back in the late ’90s and early 2000s. And now, some of the rarest ones are worth...
wealthygorilla.com wealthygorilla.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top