Why were lugers so valuable

Lugers from the early 20th century are particularly well-made, built to standards so exacting that many P08s that first saw service during World War I were completely usable during World War II and beyond. RIA has no less than 19 rare Krieghoff Lugers including commercial and Luftwaffe military contract guns.

This example is a very rare dated military contract piece in 9mm, one of just produced that year. Luger pistol, also called Parabellum Pistol, semiautomatic German hand weapon first manufactured in for both military and commercial use. It was made in 7. To buy a gun, Germans must get a firearms ownership license Waffenbesitzkarte. An ownership licence also does necessarily allow for the shooting of the weapon or for carrying it in public without the prescribed container.

These pre-WWII pistols were finished exceptionally well. The first production model was known as the Modell Parabellum. Military Academy at West Point. More purchases came in , and additional test firing took place in , leading to numerous other nations buying the weapon.

Large quantities of commercial models were exported until World War I. Over time, the so-called Borchardt-Luger nomenclature evolved into the more popular and simpler Luger in its international marketing and advertising. As with the later American-made Thompson sub-machine guns, lawmen and outlaws alike soon made the Luger a deadly weapon of choice. The neutral Swiss Army adopted the Model as its standard sidearm on April 4, , giving way in to a variation of the earlier model.

This variant was made and assembled in Bern, Switzerland, in In , the Swiss improved their version with better sights, a better trigger, and a tougher toggle link. This model endured into the s, despite the introduction of a new military sidearm in Its name was shortened by U. That same year, Georg Luger introduced the New Model, which substituted the former flat, laminated mainspring with an updated and more reliably designed coil. Lugers were thereafter all designated New Models, with their older brethren brought up to the novel specifications as well.

A carbine version with a rifle-like stock was introduced along with an artillery version that featured both a removable stock and a round Trommelmagazine 08, popularly known as the snail drum magazine. As a result, the German firm deserted the competition.

After further German modifications for the Imperial German Army in , the now famous Luger served throughout World War I, with more than a million seeing combat. Read more about the Great War and the events that shaped the twentieth century inside Military Heritage magazine.

In addition, the artillery Luger 08 was authorized by Kaiser Wilhelm II on July 2, , its stock making it a substitute carbine in combat. Prior to the installation of fixed, mounted machine guns in German fighters, pilots fought the enemy with Lugers in aerial combat. As machine guns replaced them in the air, so too did MP18 sub-machine guns in ground combat, with postwar exportation of the now globally famous Lugers continuing into the s.

During the interwar period, many knockoff Lugers were manufactured for U. Stoeger, Inc. Mauser continued wartime production in Nazi Germany into December A Luftwaffe version by Heinrich Krieghoff and Son was augmented staring in The French then relocated German production personnel to metropolitan France, where an estimated 4, French Lugers were manufactured.

As late as the National Police were armed with these captive Lugers. In , Mauser Luger production at Oberndorf finally ceased four decades after World War II, with units assembled from stock parts on hand still appearing into the s. Blaine Taylor wore an American-made.

There are moments in military history that forever alter the flow of human events. Times when the very landscape appears to shift. In the annals of military history magazines, this is one of those moments. It changed the world more than any other single event in history. There have been countless thousands of published works devoted to all or of it. WWII Quarterly, the hardcover journal of the Second World War that is not available in bookstores or on newsstands, and can only be obtained and collected through a personal subscription through the mail.

Third Army Eighth Air Force. Grant Robert E. Lee J. Stuart William T. Carl Gnam. No comments. The patent drawings for the famed German Luger pistol reveal its inner complexity. The easily recognized profile and mystique of the 9mm Luger pistol made it a highly prized souvenir among Allied troops.