It started again

Dm1 said:
Was reading through this thread just now and remembered this being sold the other day, what are your guys’ thoughts on the legitimacy of this one?? Thought this may be a good conversation piece

pre98.com

SOLD ULTRA RARE & GENUINE NAZI SS DEATHS HEAD (TOTENKOPF) SS ISSUED LUGER PISTOL, DWM 1918, VERY SHARP! - Pre98 Antiques

In 95% very sharp original condition, we have a very rare 1918 DWM Luger that was Totenkops/Lazy S marked for
pre98.com pre98.com
Click to expand...

Its trash. An embarrassing fake.
 
Just a short heads up, an observation is that on the recent Lugerforums threads it seems those who immediately shouted WWI or FAKE are by now much more silent. I somehow have the feeling it starts being accepted by Luger collectors that these are SS pistols, as well as that there are legit and fake ones.

www.lugerforums.com

Death-Head Strikes Again!

www.lugerforums.com www.lugerforums.com
 
Some Luger collectors have been accepting that as likely for 50-60 years and even longer according to Datig circa 1959. The Luger “community” is far from monolithic nor has it ever been.
 
Yeah, I read that book quote too. Forums seemed to have had a monotheistic opinion with little tolerance though.
 
It’s somewhat annoying how quickly the correlation to the rifles is dismissed.

All other theories just use the shared totenkopf iconography to assume a relationship.

Meanwhile, the SS gewehr reworks share both markings and the commercial proofing styles. Two commonalities should make SS rework hypothesis the best explanation - given what we know today.
 
Last edited:
Annoying, yes, Bert. But look who it is coming from. The same tired old arguments regurgitated by the same handful of people who offer nothing more than what they had previously spouted on the subject.

I read Herr Schad's writings with great interest, and hoped that there would be more to it than what he laid out. It was not to be. I can see where most of the old school folks developed their opinions from. It flys in the face of current research and to dismiss a broader review of similarly marked German firearms from the period is absolutely unfortunate at best.

30 years from now, you'll be an old timer; a back bencher as it were. If you stick with this, you'll have an opportunity to see the cycle continue again, and again and again. And you'll have an opportunity to own just about everything that 90% of the people on this board are currently in possession of. From that standpoint, you have every reason to be quite optimistic.
 
Gringo said:
Annoying, yes, Bert. But look who it is coming from. The same tired old arguments regurgitated by the same handful of people who offer nothing more than what they had previously spouted on the subject.

I read Herr Schad's writings with great interest, and hoped that there would be more to it than what he laid out. It was not to be. I can see where most of the old school folks developed their opinions from. It flys in the face of current research and to dismiss a broader review of similarly marked German firearms from the period is absolutely unfortunate at best.

30 years from now, you'll be an old timer; a back bencher as it were. If you stick with this, you'll have an opportunity to see the cycle continue again, and again and again. And you'll have an opportunity to own just about everything that 90% of the people on this board are currently in possession of. From that standpoint, you have every reason to be quite optimistic.
Click to expand...
No offense to my forefathers but I can’t wait until the meek inherit the earth (collections). I will have to keep the war chest full for when my great predecessors decide to pass down their Gewehr conversions and G41Ms
 
I don’t get the desire to avoid the SS connection at all costs. I mean, SS stuff is more generally more valuable or desirable, so why fight it so hard? Is it just to be cantankerous tools? Are they just ashamed to own an SS weapon? Do they just want to be right at all costs? It’s kind of sad.
 
nirvana said:
I don’t get the desire to avoid the SS connection at all costs. I mean, SS stuff is more generally more valuable or desirable, so why fight it so hard? Is it just to be cantankerous tools? Are they just ashamed to own an SS weapon? Do they just want to be right at all costs? It’s kind of sad.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure that “they” are really very many and certainly are not nor have ever been a representation of the majority of Luger collectors. If one wants to know how or why there different opinions on this marking as found on Lugers they need to know the history of how this marking has been treated in various Luger references going back fully 65 years now. Identification as a SS rework stamp has been offered as a very strong likelihood at since 1959 by Fred Datig in his book “the Luger Pistol”, a book compiled in the early to mid 1950s. This opinion was reinforced by Charles Kenyon in his late 1960s book “Lugers at Random”. The SS rework relation as started out as and remained the dominant accepted explanation of this marking among Luger collectors from then to now and I’m probably prepared to prove it but I really don’t want to waste the time. Theories or in some cases just wild blind stabs trying to tie this marking to the lifeguard (deathhead) Hussar regiment, WWI Stormtroopers, WWI flamethrower troops and post WWI Freikorps units have been suggested as well some also in Datigs and Kennyons book. Actually I think that these were addressed initially in Datigs 1962 revised edition but may have just been expanded on then, I can not fully recall and I’m not going to look it up. The point is this: if a collecting community (no clue what that means but the interwebbers love the term) is going to be tarred for subscribing to an inaccurate attribution then don’t use an inaccurate attribution to tar them!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top