Engraved Krieghoffs A Wondrous Piece of Art
Life Fact: 2 Engraved Krieghoffs are Better than 1
Hey guys, welcome to another walk-in Wednesday. This is a pretty exciting hobby, really, and I love doing these videos because it really spreads the word to a whole new group of people. Let me give you an example of that. Probably a couple of months ago, if you look at one of our earlier videos and I encourage you to go back if you subscribe or go back, look at “Legacy Collectibles, Engraved Krieghoff” you'll see that we did a video on this engrave Krieghoff and very, very rare gone 1 of 10.
The Krieghoffs Exception
And in that video, I said, you know, there are only ten knowns. If you know of another one, let me now will alone. Behold, somebody who watches our video said, hey, I have one. So we now have two engraved Krieghoffs. Now, again, go back and watch that video. What I was saying there is no factory engraved Luger's from the wartime or pre-war era. With the exception of Krieghoffs.
Krieghoffs had their own engravers. They made shotguns. I'd talk about that in the video, but I want to say a little bit more and do one correction. But first, let's compare these two because this is a unique opportunity. Only ten were made. It seems that they all were given to Hermann Goering, who gave them out to some of his crony friends. If you look at the two guns, there are some distinct differences. And actually, let's look at the package before we even talk about the gun.
Krieghoff Cases Examined
The previous one that I had my hands-on, you can see the box. It has a black exterior, shows a lot of age. The new gun that just walked in has a similar material, but there they are, very different. You can see that the gun been there for a long time. You see the imprint of the gun. But you see the blue interior. They both have blue interiors one’s a little dirtier than the other one.
Platinum Krieghoff vs Silver Plated, What’s your Preference?
They both have a spot for a spare mag. Let's distinguish him by saying this one is platinum. And the one that's tarnished is silver plated. So platinum plate obviously holds up a lot better, a lot shinier. You can see it. It has a takedown tool, which is Krieghoff marked and a cleaning rod. If you unscrew it, you can see there's an oiler hidden inside of there with some original oil, the platinum one. Again, shinier is dated nineteen thirty-nine.
It also has crown end proofs. Now crown end proofs were the commercial proof that they used on all Lugers. Up until about nineteen thirty-nine the end of 1939 -1940, the Nazi party switched over to a Nazi Eagle end. And you can see the silver plated one is from nineteen forty-one actually, September 9th of nineteen forty-one silver plated with some tarnish. It has Eagle end proof. Also, what's interesting is the silver-plated one. Actually, the serial number is earlier than the platinum-plated one, so the one from thirty-nine actually has a later serial number, which is interesting.
Krieghoff’s Detail Unmatched?
I'm not sure other than the book says they were not put together in sequence. So, in other words, they made some parts, set them aside. And then later assemble them. So the serial number is not necessarily sequential. And that's certainly true in this case, the silver one from nineteen forty-one. You can see the engraving while tarnished is also a lot deeper. Check out the backstrap. And by the way, this is considered a typical Germanic oak leaf, an Acorn.
You can see it's got a deeper engraving front strap again, deeper engraving, the silver one. You can see the barrel is engraved, whereas the platinum one, the barrel is relatively smooth. You can see the nineteen forty one has an ivory grip, but different style and that style was used by other guns. I've seen that style before in Krieghoff Lugers, and then the platinum one again has a little more ornate style. But again, Oakleaf and Acorn, both of them have matching magazines.
Krieghoff Luger's by Randall Gibson
Actually, the platinum one comes with two matching magazines. You can see that absolutely beautiful guns. They do come in nine millimeters, which was the standard German military caliber. It's really amazing to be able to have two of these at one time. Again, in the first video, I talk about Krieghoff Luger's by Randall Gibson. The book here, The Exact Gun, the platinum one is in here. The silver one evidently was a is a newer find because that serial number is not in the book.
How do they Engrave these Guns?
However, I don't doubt its authenticity because the deep engraving, these guns, when they were finished, the metal was hardened. And I'm not a metallurgist, but what I do know is that it's near impossible to do these deep engravings on hardened metal. So this engraving had to be done before the gun was hardened and in order to get this beautiful engraving done. So this was done pre being issued. So I have no doubt that this is a factory engraved, authentic Krieghoff Luger.
So that's a little bit of the story about the gun itself. These engraved guns, beautiful guns.
What’s the story with this Engraved Krieghoff?
But what's the story behind the gun? The last time I did this video about the engraved Krieghoffs, I mentioned that they were probably given the Luftwaffe aces. Well, that's a romantic thought. But the more I dug into it; I don't think that's true. And in order to help us make that conclusion, let's look back a little bit about the life of Hermann Goering.
Nazi Leader Hermann Goering Brief Bio
He was a Luftwaffe ace. There's a picture of him. He was a lot slimmer then, and he was actually a hero in the country after World War One. He was celebrated as a hero. He got into politics, and that's how he ended up meeting Hitler in the 20s. He joined the Nazi Party. He ran for office. He actually became a member of the Reichstag. And he became friends with Hitler early on in the 20s.
Hermann Goering gets Wounded
However, in one of the riots, you know, the stormtroopers would create havoc in the cities and riot. It was usually the Nazis against the communists. He was actually wounded in the leg in one of the riots. And again, in the 1920s was the first time he took morphine, and he became immediately addicted. He probably had an addictive personality if we take a look at him. He ate too much. He drank too much. He womanizes too much, and when he collected guns, he collected a lot of guns. I actually Google searched “Goering presentation guns.”
Hermann Goering’s Vast Gun Collection
And I just scrolled through pages and pages of guns that were supposedly presented to Goering. Now, probably about half of those are fake. If you look at some of them, they can't be right. In fact, I bid on a number of these guns and always dropped out before they got really high. But they sell for a lot of money. So there's a good reason to fake some of these. But he was I mentioned he's obsessive in his personality.
Goering’s Obsessive Personality Does’t Do Him any Favors
He's always visiting factories. He's good friends with Heinrich Krieghoff. And so every time he visits the factory, they, of course, present him with engraved guns. He engraved shotguns and other lugers rifles, drillings PPs, and PPK all presented to him, which goes along again with his personality. If you look at when they conquered the different European countries, Goering would always go in. They would take all the treasures from the mansions of the Jews or the political leaders, and he bring it all back.
He had villas all over Germany filled with treasures and loot from all over Europe. In fact, they found caves filled with this stuff. Now, what did he do with it? He was obviously saving it for after the war, but he also gave stuff away. He paid bribes; he promoted his friends. The whole economy was based on this cronyism, favoritism from Hitler, who flowed down to Goering and Himmler. Goering, by the way, was his number two man.
Goering #2 to Hitler
He was to be the successor to Hitler. And again, this obsessive personality, he was just known for partying, drug addiction, overeating, and obsessive collecting. I think some of you could probably relate. I can. And I know I need to keep that in balance, especially the eating part. You know, you can look like Goering after a while, he was actually made fun of. They called him the fat man in both his enemies and his friends, called him the fat man behind his back. He was the brunt of a lot of jokes.
You Guys Stay in Shape but We Won’t
You have to remember in Nazi Germany at that time; they celebrated Aryan, the Aryan race, Health and fitness strength, the SS all kinds of really high standards. But yet you look at you look at Hitler, Goebbels who we've already talked about, Goering, Himmler, all were not the showcase for Nazi strength. So these guys are in office because they're all friends with Hitler. They all take care of one another. They're paying bribes. They're partying a lot.
Legend of Goering’s Capture Clarified
A lot of nonsense going on in Nazi Germany until it all fell apart. And of course, in the end, we know that Goering was captured with a Smith and Wesson Revolver. There's actually a picture of the surrender. If you look at one of the auctions, they have an auction of a PPK, and it says famous German surrender pistol. It wasn't. It makes a great story. Somebody paid a lot of money. But he is seen carrying a Smith and Wesson Revolver, throughout the war, and when he was captured, there are all kinds of stories about he was captured with a gold engraved gun. He wasn't. It was a Smith and Wesson Revolver. It looks like a 357 magnum, but it could have been a 38 caliber. So that's a little bit of a story behind the story. He was given ten guns probably as part of an order, which he then probably gave away to party leaders and cronies, friends of his, as part of the favoritism that the Nazi Party showed toward their friends and relatives.
Goering’s Brother an Anti Nazi!
Oh, speaking of relatives, one more interesting fact, Goering had a brother who is an anti-Nazi. He was adamant anti-Nazi, and somehow Goering kept him protected throughout the war from all the purges that took place to round up all of Hitler's enemies. So they took care of their friends and their family.
Artistry in the form of a Gun
Now, in conclusion, beautiful guns. They have a storied past is a piece of art. It's been fun looking at these and handling these are worth a lot of money. In most cases, they go for over one hundred thousand dollars. But the whole history of these guns being given away, in my mind, it's there's no romantic story about going to Luftwaffe Aces. But in fact, it's just part of the cronyism that took place toward the end of World War Two in Germany.
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