What Linked Nazi Guns to The Swedish Water Authority?

 

Pre 1946 Walther Pistols, Yet Another Scarce Variation Reviewed

Pre 1946 Walther Pistols, Yet Another Scarce Variation Reviewed (picture 2)

Hey guys. Today we're doing another educational video. Again I'm going to be doing a very scarce variation. This one is not even in the books, at least I've not seen it documented in a book. It is considered a factory variation there was only 100 of them made. I call it the Statens Gun. There's actually three variations of this gun. Of the PPs there's three blocks: there's a block of steel, this is a steel gun and you can see number 7. These were numbered. We have to assume there was about a hundred of these made because we have actually in hand up to number 92. So it would make sense they ordered about 100 of them. But this one is number 7, you can see the marking on the PP and again this is steel-framed. They then did a small block of dural. There's only 6 known dural PPs. We're going to go over the dural variations but basically, dural was an aluminum frame. It made the gun a little bit lighter and then finally they came out with a PPK. It seems as if there's a same number, probably 50 PPs and 50 PPKs because the survival rate on these are pretty high. I'll talk about that a little bit more. But let's back up a little bit and talk about where these went. 


Where did the guns go? A Historical Factory, Perhaps?

Where did the guns go A Historical Factory, Perhaps

A lot of the videos that I do it looks like an episode of Pawn Stars. This one however is going to look more like MythBusters and let me tell you why. As long as I've been collecting these and first found out about the Statens Guns I was told that these went to you know the heroes of Telemark: The Heroes of Telemark - Kirk Douglas, Richard Harris, Lula Jacobson, Michael Redgrave. Their mission stop the Nazis from developing the atom bomb. It's about the Norwegians, the water factory there, the heavy water, the Germans were trying to get atomic material, nuclear material to make an atomic bomb and the Norwegians stopped them from doing that. And I was told these went to that factory. However quick research would tell you this is Swedish and therefore this gun actually went to the Swedish State Water Authority. So basically they're waterworks, Swedish waterworks. I have to read it because my Swedish is not real good but let me see if I can get that right. It's Statens Vattenfallsverk. To my Swedish friends, I apologize, my Swedish is terrible but this went to the Swedish waterworks.

It has no connection to the heroes of Telemark. So I apologize for those people who I repeated that falsehood, But you know how collectors, a good example would be the Black Widow. Black Widow lugar is very popular. People say they went to the SS because they're black and really cool. It actually has no connection to the SS. So we as collectors sometimes hear a story about a gun, especially when there's only 100 of them not sure where it went, but this was Swedish waterworks.

Swedish Citizens Guarding the Water Supply

So factory guards, probably Swedish citizens. The reason being the Germans didn't want to deploy troops to watch the waterworks. Everybody, the Swedes, the Nazis, nobody wanted the water supply to be poisoned or interrupted, people would die. So they had factory guards who guarded the factory. These were a hundred of these - 50 PPs and 50 PPKs were issued to the factory guards. 


Back Story & The Survival Rate of these PPs and PPKs

The survival rate, I mentioned that, probably close to 50%. I know of 32 guns. I mean there's probably some undiscovered guns out there. A lot of them are coming in from Sweden. Sweden does export them. I buy them as a collector from Swedish auctions from time to time so we can bring them to the United States where gun ownership is a little easier than it is in Europe.

Are you More Afraid of Soviet Troops or German Troops?

Are you More Afraid of Soviet Troops or German Troops

So they're still available, they're almost always in incredible condition. The bores are usually mirror. Sweden was never bombed, it was part of the war but there weren't any Swedish battles. The invasion was just more of an occupation. During that time the Germans came in 1940. But before that the Swedish army only had 100,000 men in it and they were deployed on the Finnish border because Finland if you remember, was being invaded by the Soviet Union. Now at that time, the Swedes were more afraid of the Soviets than they were of the Germans. So they stacked their troops along the Finnish border and of course, the Germans came into Denmark and they invaded Norway and then just occupied Sweden(**NOTE WELL**: Sweden was never occupied by the Nazi's. They were officially neutral during the war, but "forced" into compliance to avoid an invasion.). So they came in from the western side where there was no defenses.

Sweden Mostly Occupied.....so Guns Survived

So generally Sweden was just occupied, there weren't any major battles there, no major bombings and therefore the survivability of these weapons was much higher than most guns. We estimate... When we do calculations on how many were made we assume a 10% survival rate because a lot of them went to the bottom of the ocean, a lot of them were destroyed, a lot of them people buried them in their backyard and then forgot about it. So a 10% survival rate on German handguns is about average. Whereas these, we probably have a 50 % survival rate.

So that's a little bit about the Swedish waterworks but don't go away because coming at you now, I have a big surprise. You're going to like this.


A little Surprise for You!

I actually have a boxed Swedish waterworks gun. Now this is your normal box. Again I'll do another video just about the different box variation. This is the color of a normal pre-war and wartime PPK box and you've seen these before. I actually showed you an RJ that was new in the box. For this to be new in the box first of all this is much sturdier than this. This is just a flimsy cardboard box. It has the typical green label and the number is on the side.

The number matches the gun. For this to be in this condition, it had to have been issued, put in a closet, maybe they handed out 90 of them and ten of them went in a closet somewhere. This one was stuffed in a closet. It came to the United States. A collector friend of mine had this for many years and then graciously sold it to me. It's not for sale; I'm going to keep this one forever. I'll keep this as long as I can't say Vattenfallsverk. If I can't get that, then I can't sell this gun. 


What's inside the Pristine Box? Anything good?

What_s inside the Pristine Box Anything good

So inside we have the original cleaning rod and this is correct. A later manual, the other manuals actually have... It's more of a booklet. And again when I go over the different boxes I'll show you the booklets. But this is in incredible condition. It's like brand-new, incredible manual. It actually has a picture of a PP on the front with a box magazine, that's kind of cool. Inside as you would see in most, you see there's a spare magazine that's flat bottom. Actually, the finger extension won't even fit in here so we know it came with one finger extension mag and one flat bottom mag, this is typical. This is always a surprise.

What's in this little tin?

What_s in this little tin

Usually there's a rag, an oil can and maybe a piece of cellophane. This one, there's your oil. That is original oil from 1940. Look at that 1940 oil; this one comes in a little bottle. We also have seen them in other kinds of bottles. This is a horsehair rag which they used to... I think it's horsehair. Doesn't actually look like horsehair I don't know what that is but it's just a little felt kind of a thing. And here is the original cellophane that the little rag came in. So you can see the crumpled-up Walther logo. So from 1940 there's the tin with the whatever hair that is, it actually feels like insulation. Typically they were horsehair but that feels more like insulation. If you other tins they came with a picture of the factory. This is a later version from 1940, they just did the banner which is a little easier. 


Finally the Gun

Finally the Gun

And then finally the gun. The gun just like these other ones it's just an incredible condition and the number on this one is 79. So it's near the end of the run, again stuck in a closet. I believe there's about 100 of these but incredible finds. I'm really proud to own some of these guns and I'm really proud to bring them to you. 


Stay tuned


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