Pre 1946 Walthers Oh the Beauty!

Hey, guys, today I want to talk about finishes on Walthers, now I'm a pre 1946 Walther collector. That's how I started Walthers and Lugers, that's how I got started. Again almost 30 years ago, I bought my first Luger when I was in college, so I know a lot about the finishes on pre nineteen forty-six. The guys out there who do the post-war collecting. I don't know a lot about post-war. So, what I'm going to talk about today only applies to pre-1946 Walthers which would be PP sand PPKs. So, let's take a look.

 

Handsome Blue Finish from 1930s Walther

Handsome Blue Finish from 1930s Walther

First of all, as most of you would know, about 99% of all the Walther PPs and PPKs were blued. About ninety-nine percent, so that means only about 1 percent have any other finish at all. So, nine times out actually, ninety-nine out of a hundred times.

When you see a Walther, you're going to see a blue gun. Now the early Walther, this is from the 1930s. They started producing this one in about 1930, PPs were about 1929. But 1930s Walther is going to be a high polish blue. And you can see how beautiful that gun is.

When the war broke out, the finishes began to degrade a little bit. And so, at the end of the war, this is actually nineteen forty-five. Now you notice they use a wood grip because they were running out of plastics.

 

War Era Walther Finishes

War Era Walther Finishes

There's no legend at all. And you can see the machining marks on this gun. So, the quality production, they just didn't polish on. They just put a coat of finish on them and throw them out because they were going to war to the last bastion of defense in Germany. That's what I love about this particular era. Because you can see the differences from the early high polish to the later guns. And the same is true, by the way, if you collect PP 38s, the same is true. You have the early high polish, which degrades down to a poor military finish, even phosphate, and finishes toward the end of the war.

 

Vikrant Finishes

Vikrant Finishes

But now let's look at some of the really exciting stuff. So, we're talking about just one percent have a different finish. This is like the Germans called Vikrant. What we might call Saturn nickel. Vikrant finish. These were made early and they're commercial guns. The reason they were made early is because they were trying to sell them to Germans and also all over the world. So, they were kind of coming up with better finishes that people might enjoy. So, before the war broke out, they did do a Vikrant finish. This is actually one of my favorites, by the way. The Vikrant finish, I think is just really cool. The PP, they added the brown grip, PP gave almost always had the brown grip. But those are examples of the Vikrant finish. Beautiful guns.

 

Rare Nickel Finishes and Red Bottom Mags

Rare Nickel Finishes and Red Bottom Mags

Even more rare, we might see, and I say, might say causes a lot of confusion about the Nickel guns. Here's a nickeled PP that I believe is original nickel. Now you'll notice this is funny looking red magazine and you're going to say it's going to be totally fake. But they actually did a chartreuse green and red magazine. The green is like finding a unicorn. They just never show up. I do have a couple of these red bottom magazines and they are real and they go with a nickel gun.

Now, the controversy about the Nickel gun, first of all, they're pretty rare, but you do see nickel guns. So, people say, well, I have a couple of nickel guns. I've seen a couple of nickel guns. And that's because the GIs at the end of the war, they brought home souvenirs. And so, here's a nickel gun. You can see the difference.

 

The 1% of Guns

The 1% of Guns

You notice how the legend looks all filled in and also if you look at the proof marks, they've almost disappeared on this gun. So not only is this only one percent but nine times out of ten. When you see a nickel gun, it was a G.I. nickeled gun. At the end of the war, they brought home their souvenirs and back then they liked them to be shiny. Nine times out of ten if you have a nickel gun. It probably was done by the G.I. And now here's the problem. It hurts the value. It's not original. It's not factory original. So, where a factory original Nickel gun might be three or four thousand dollars, G.I. Nickel gun is worth about half of what an original blue finish would be. In fact, I have colleagues who would remove the nickel and re-blue it just because it takes it back to its original condition, although it's always re-blue. So, in my opinion, leave it alone. It doesn't help it.

 

Original Nickel vs. Re-Nicked Guns: How to tell?

Original Nickel vs. Re-Nicked Guns How to tell

Now how can you tell for sure if it's original factory nickel versus re nickel? Really hard to say if you're a modern gun collector. Let's take pythons, I'd like pythons as well. If you take pythons, they come in blue finished, but they also come in nickel finish, nickel actually increases the value. So, some industrious people would take a blue gun and nickel it. But you can write to the factory and get a factory letter saying this was issued nickeled or this was issued blue. So, you can prove it from a factory letter. The problem with Walthers is, the wartime Walther is there are no factory records. Everything was destroyed at the end of the war. So, for me to prove that this is G.I. Nickeled or factory nickel is very difficult. I can only go from 30 years of collecting the sharpness of the markings. The fact that it has, you know, some additional accouterments to it, such as the presentation grips, that tells me, OK, that's this is a special gun because it's not normal.

Contact Us if you are Not sure about your Gun

The best way for you to tell if this is original or not is to contact legacy collectibles. Really, if you just write to us, we're happy to help you out, because even though we don't have factory records, I have collected over 12,000 serial numbers and they tend to come in blocks. So, for example, everything on my records will be blue, blue, blue, blued. And then there'll be a section of maybe three or four nickel, nickel, nickel. They tend to take them off the factory floor sentiment's side for a special order and then continue with production. So, the same is true with the engraved guns, which we're going to look at these for chromed guns, they come in blocks, all have a block of 10 for chrome in amongst all the blue guns and then the nickel guns tend to come in blocks as well. Every once in a while. Is it possible that one was taken off the factory floor? A nickel? Anything's possible. But when I buy guns, if I buy it as an original nickel, I like to see it in a block of other nickeled guns.

 

Rare Chrome Finished PPs and PPKs

Rare Chrome Finished PPs and PPKs

OK, my next finish is going to be chrome. Now, photographing chrome is really difficult, actually, nickel is kind of tough because you get a lot of a flashback and it's hard to see the finish. So, I don't know, I'm not sure how this would come out, but this is nickeled and this is chromed. I actually have some chrome PPs and chrome PPKs. These tend to be presentation guns, special purpose. Why somebody would get a chrome gun again, very rare, rarer than nickel. But the chrome is a lot brighter than a nickel. You also notice the white grips, which are very rare. So this tells me that this gun was a special order, that the fact that as white grips is presented to somebody.

Just like collecting coats, if you get a nickel coat with ivory grips, you know, it had a special purpose. So, again, I have some chrome PPs and Chrome PPKs, a very rare finish. On this one, if you rub your finger on the proof mark, it's raised. This one, you feel it as well. If you want to feel for it being raised because when they stamp that, it raises the medal around the mark. And so, the fact that it's raised means it wasn't buffed down and refinished.

 

Rare Silver and Gold PP and PPKs

Rare Silver and Gold PP and PPKs

Finally, let's take a look at some silver and gold PP and PPKs. This is a silver-plated PPK. Again, presentation, white grip. You can tell its silver as opposed to nickel because of the tarnish. And the tarnish actually makes a nice contrast in the engraving. So, this is factory engraved silver finish that's tarnished a little bit. A very, very rare gun. Not too many people have ever even seen one. But I have a couple of these.

And finally, a gold. This is the creme de la creme. Top of the line. Back, actually, the gold. You'll notice right away; this one is brighter gold. I just pulled this out. This the magazine that comes with this looks about like the gun itself. Because of the gold wash, they actually nickeled the gun. And then gold washed over the top of it. The gold washes, I hate to even touch it because it comes off very easily. Original gold wash, you'll see it only in the crevices and especially notice it and the safety, well, you can see the gold watch in there. But whenever I've seen an original gold wash, it's almost always completely gone. You can see this one has again, a special presentation, Ivory Grips. So that tells me probably this was a special order. It also comes in with a block of a solid block of other engraved guns. My theory is that these would take up to a year or more to engrave. So, they would pull them off the factory floor. They would send them to the engraver. It would take a while to get these done. So, they might even know this was pulled off in maybe 1938. It may not have been presented until 1940 because it took that long to engrave these. And you'll see even the floor plate is engraved. I pulled this out as an example of a gold finish, which might go really well with this gun other than it looks too good. But my theory is this was re-gilded because it's too good to be true.

I like for the gold finish to look about like that, because if you see the top has a lot less wear because it doesn't slide in and out. But you can see how it is nickel-plated and then a gold wash over time. So those are the finishes that you will find in pre-1946. Walthers again in review. Most of them are blue. Ninety-nine percent are going to be blue. We do have the Satin nickel for chrome. We have chrome, chrome finish, nickel, nickel, finish, and remember a lot of the nickel finish or G.I. re-nickels and it drops from $3,000 down to $450. And then the silver and gold finishes. Enjoy your collecting career and be on the hunt for some of these treasures at your next gun show.

Thanks for reading!