Collector Community Blog

There is no way to say for sure, but my guess (as well as others) is that production for the Walther PPK stopped in late 1944. I can't say for sure that there were NO PPK's made in 45, but I can say there is no evidence of full production.

Ron Clarin has documented what the GI's found in the factory when they took over in 1945. You will see photos with racks of PP's and crates of P.38's, but NOT a bunch of unfinished PPK's. Random frames and slides, yes. Spare parts? Yes. Enough to put together a few unnumbered PPK? I believe, yes. And I have seen such guns that I would guess were put together from leftover parts. But not like the thousands of Post war PP's and P38's that you can find. GI mismatch PP's and P38's are fairly common. But where are the GI mismatch PPK's?

If you go to the last known serial numbers of a PP or AC45 you will find that they have NO proofs and they are mismatched guns. But if you go to the last 100 known PPK's, you will see that they all have all 3 proofs,

Staff Sergeant Mark DeAlencar was 37 years old, had a family and was a Green Beret with the 7th Army Special Forces stationed in the Fort Walton area. He was killed on April 8, 2018, while fighting Islamic State in eastern Afghanistan. In January of this year, he was deployed for the second time to Afghanistan. He promised his stepdaughter, Octavia, that he would be home for her High School Graduation. He didn't make it. But she went to graduation anyway. And in the audience were eighty (80) US 7th Armed Special Forces soldiers from her dad’s unit in full Parade Dress Uniform. Additionally, they brought their families to be with them, as well.

We were recently featured on a 3rd party website: Theocadcollection.com. The website published an article we wrote on the model 1903 rifle! You can check it out by following this link: http://www.theocadcollection.com/articles.html

I've seen lots of different RZM M7 / xxx maker codes over the years. I had no idea how many there actually were. A little research tells me there were 129 makers total! Does anyone know why there were so many? Maybe this was an effort to improve the economy and give people jobs as well as increase sentiment towards the war effort in Germany. From what I found, there were 82 original makers under the RZM code as of 1938 (published by the nazi political party in 1938), and then later in 1938-1939 they added more, but some (numbers 10, 26, 39, 69, 75, 81, 82, 87, 90, 96, 100, 105, 106, 113, and 116) were 'withdrawn' from production permissions. Once Austria was annexed by Germany, about 10 more were added to get the total list we have today (this also explains why the numbers are in sequence and then jump at the end. Perhaps the nazis were planning on having MANY more maker codes).

Not sure what production numbers were like from each, but I'm sure some are more scarce than others

I recently received a rare NPEA (National Political Education Institute, or Nationalpoltische Erziehungsanstalt) youth dagger. I read that the NPEA was run by the Nazi SS beginning in 1933 for the Nazi youth ages 10-18. I found a few original examples online but couldn't find any like the one I had. This one has no emblem on the wood handle and weighs 12.4 oz. This seems light to me but I don't have any other similar daggers to compare the weight to. Usually I would chalk it up as a fake, and move on, but this one has light patina on the aluminum metal hand guard / pommel. Also I can see light horizontal machine markings on the blade, which to me are a sign of authenticity, but it could also be a forger's knowledge of the hobby... Anyone have thoughts? Thanks for any feedback...

So my dad has this really old gun from WW2 that his wild guess was a "chinese mauser" and had no idea what the weird test tube shaped bullets it used were, only that they said TERNI 17 PG2315 on the rim (or at least the round he'd picked up to look at did). I did some digging and figured out they were 6.5x54mm Mannlicher-Schonauer rounds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6.5%C3%9754mm_Mannlicher%E2%80%93Sch%C3%B6nauer

So going off this, I had him send me a picture of the gun (it was super fuzzy so I didn't post it), and based on the extending metal infront of the trigger guard (the area where the clip sits, as it's a top loader), I deduced it must be an Italian Carcano, and the 6.5x54mm's wikipedia page mentioned that during German occupation, captured Carcano rifles were rechambered into that round for use by Greek forces. I sent him a few pictures of different Carcano rifles and

Answer:  We get this question a lot.  First I would start with an era.  By far, the most popular Lugers are the Nazi era guns (WW2). However, I have people who don't want anything from the Nazi era (for obvious reasons) so for them I would recommend a WW1 luger. Now that we know the time period of interest, this leads to the TYPE Luger you want.  The most popular Type luger would be military issue with military proofs on the gun.   So in WW1 it would be a German military issued gun and in WW2 era (most popular) it would be a Nazi issued and proofed gun.   The commercial Lugers from the pre-war period as well as the between war period are NOT as popular and harder to resell when the time comes to divest.   Also, post WW2 lugers are much less desirable.  Following the military luger in popularity would be the Police issued guns.  There are various types of Police guns and Legacy Collectibles can walk you through those choice should you

Check out this SVW 45 P.38 we just got in. Post WW2 French manufactured but with a spread winged eagle stamped over the Nazi military proof stamp, and "BH" stamped into the frame. Research tells us that this means Austrian military. There is also a Mauser eagle/135 proof stamp next to the French star. I assume this means the French made this pistol from left over parts from the Nazi factory, then contracted/sold to the Austrain military/police. Feel free to add in any comments below! 

The Japanese were known for using mostly their own armaments, and were very proud of the firearms they produced. However, we speculate that the Japanese liked the Browning model 1910 (or maybe at least some officers did) because there are records and reports of Japanese soldiers carrying the model 1910. To further prove these reports, we've found a few model 1910 holsters that clearly look like Japanese production. They have stitching and leather styles similar to that of the early type 14 and type 94 leather Nambu holsters. See the photos below and weigh in if you have any further evidence of these claims. Why the model 1910?  

We wanted a platform for our customers and fellow military collectors to post ideas, questions, discoveries, and give us feedback on their experiences with our company. We welcome all of you to join us on our Community Blog! You can create a new topic / post by signing in to you Legacy-Collectibles account, go to the My Account page, and you should see a link to "Add New Blog Post" on the left side navigation. You can also reply to any previous post by scrolling down to the bottom of that post's content, and clicking the open text field. Make sure you're logged into your Legacy account first! Thank you & feel free to reach out if you have any questions!!