World's Largest Collection of Factory Engraved Walther PP's and PPK's

The largest collection of engraved Walther’s, Let’s Go!!

Hey guys and welcome to one of our educational videos and this one's really exciting. In fact, I would even say epic. This is going to be an epic video. Now I just did an epic video and many of you commented that that word is overused but in this case my Kreighoff Luger video was epic. Now I'm going to almost top it by showing you the biggest collection of engraved PP's and PPK's on the planet, at least I think it is. So come on in and let's take a look at some of these engraved Walther’s.

Factory letters would have been a big help, Email us!

So let's start off with some serial numbers and as I've said before because I've shown you other engraved PP's and PPK's, they tend to fall into groups. In other words, if we had factory letters we could go back and say was this engraved from the factory? All those records were destroyed but collectors like myself have been gathering data for 25 - 30 years and we have come up with serial ranges for PP's and PPK's.

Serial numbers - sometimes they’re grouped, sometimes they’re not

Obviously you can screenshot this but make it easier, if you email us just ask us for the summary sheet of engraved guns and we will send this to you. Let me first off say that there are others that are not on here. So, for example, the first one of 1937, 1938, there were engraved guns earlier than that. I have engraved guns that I believe are factory going back to 1933 but there's only one or two. And then there'll be one and then there'll be none and then there'll be…So there's not like a grouping like this. When I see a group, all of them being engraved then I know that these were factory engraved, they're pulled off the line - basically the production line. They're pulled off the production line, set aside for engraving. The engraving could take six months to a year because they were backed up and they would put them on hold and I'll show you how I know that. It could take six months to a year to actually get them engraved and get them out but these were all special order guns pulled from the factory floor. 
The first block is in the million series

You see the first category is actually...I'm going to do PPK's first. You will notice that there are many more PP's that are engraved than PPK's. PPK's are probably more popular and a little more expensive. The first recorded block that I have in 1938 is in the million series and I don't have one to show you. I've actually never owned an engraved million series.

Next up, two engraved guns from 210-211 range

Then we go down and you see in the 210 range to 211, take a look at these two guns because they fall into that group. This one is gold engraved. The engraving is oak leaf and acorn. Mostly oak leaf, I don't see too many acorns, sometimes you see acorns in there. Oak leaf and acorn, gold engraved with a brown grip. You'll notice that even the screw is engraved and we'll take a look at the other side because this one was presented, it has the person's name. This next one, so this one's serial number is 210 and this one is 211. So you see the difference, first of all, this one is blued and this one is gold. Obviously the gold is beautiful. This has a party leader grip, I have no idea if that originally came with it but certainly, it's on there now and when I bought it it had a party leader grip on it. You'll notice again the screw is engraved, just very minor engraving. The style of engraving on this one is considered a vine, some people call it a grapevine, I don't know. It's more of a floral arrangement as opposed to the oak leaf. Oak leaf is by far the most common, you'll see a lot of oak leaf.

202 serial range, out of sequence but let’s carry on!

Then moving on with PPK's, the next category, this one is out of sequence. It's actually in the 202 serial range. I thought I set these up sequentially but it should actually be one of the first ones you'll see. The second category is 202, so that is an early one. Again gold and this one also looks floral or vine but that's a standard pattern just like this one.

Three engraving patterns

The Germanic engraving was basically one of three patterns, you'll see all three of them here. But there are slight differences. If you look at the front they're very similar. These were made about a year apart and you can see they're still Crown N proofed.

The 297 serial range, not on the list but I have it

And then this one is actually not on the list. If you look at the 297 serial range, there is not a group but I'm showing you this one just to show you an example of this one did not come in a group, it just came one all by itself. But in looking at it it is silver engraved, the white grip is special and looks all original. It's oak leaf and I included it just as an example of not every time do you find them in a solid block.

Factory engraved or not?

Every once in a while you see one or two, however, I can't prove this is factory. I believe it is just by taking a look at the quality of the engraving and the fact that it has a white grip, although the screw is not engraved. So if I had this one I wouldn't have 100% confidence that it was factory engraved but it's a good example of period engraved, it was done at that period. But we don't know for sure that it was a factory engraver. I just threw that in as an example.

The last category of PPK – 408,000 range

And then finally, the last category of PPK, if you look at your list you'll see it's in the 408,000 range. We actually did a video. We had two sequential PPK's and you can see they were from 1944 in the 400,000 range, actually 408.

Special order guns for Himmler

I believe these were ordered by Himmler. They had blank slides where he could make a presentation to a soldier or to a friend and that was again, common practice. He did it early and he did it late in order to boost morale but very few engraved guns in 1944. As you can imagine the factories had more important things to do, like try to make resources for the war effort. But if Himmler said I want some guns they would stop what they were doing and get some guns.

The twins were set aside in the factory

Coming back to PPK's again, I'm jumping ahead but this is an example of the same thing. The twins have no proof mark which means it was set aside in the factory, never test-fired and this portion is blank. And that's because it was waiting on inscription to be presented to somebody, some kind of a Nazi leader or a hero of the Third Reich. 
On to the PP’s, first up the 976 range

But let's go back in sequence to the beginning. We've done the PPK's and they're far more PP’s. So let's take a look at these. Again, there are early engraved guns but they're not in a solid block. This is the first block of PP's. So these two are both in the 976 range. So just like the PPK's I have an example of a gold and one blued. Down here we have early, from 1938. We have two - one blue and one in gold.

The Germans were at the top of their game

Now what's interesting about 1938, if you think about the history, the Germans, the Nazis were in their heyday. The war hadn't started yet but they had just built an economy. They had 100% employment, everything was...a lot of this is propaganda of course. According to their sources everything in the Third Reich was just humming on all cylinders, the economy's going great, they're building highways, building their railroads, new technologies. And so before Hitler, people just didn't have a lot of money. They are a very poor country and they didn't have much to celebrate. But in '38, '39 and just before the war they were at the height of their glory. And as you know they're having parades, night-time parades with torches and banners, daytime parades - just parades, parades, parades. They had parade uniforms, parade daggers, parade swords and they were making or presenting a lot of these engraved guns.

First up in the 976 range, a 9mm with a custom grip

So let's take a look again. So the first one this is a custom made grip. I'm sure because I've never seen another one like it. Interesting that it has oak leaf. A little bit of an inlay there and you'll notice this one is a 9mm. It's the only engraved gun that I have that is not in 7.65. And by the way, yes I have seen .22 caliber engraved, factory engraved. And I've only seen a couple 9mm factory engraved.

And another engraved 9mm with a custom grip

So this one, 9mm with a custom grip and you'll notice again everything is engraved. Let's see, yeah, grip screw is engraved, we've got inlay and you can see the quality of the engraving. Let's do the other side. You'll notice that the safety is engraved. Gold has the ivory grip, notice grip screw is engraved, bottom of the magazine. Notice this piece here is very...this wouldn't have it but you can see how ornate that is and on the PPK you wouldn't have that just because it was a one-piece grip that covered that up. Let's take a look at the front. We've seen that pattern before very similar, so they did similar styles in the factory. They always did under here and sometimes the ejection port was engraved. These early ones, I don't see the engraved ejection port but in a little bit you're going to see where even the ejection port is engraved. Let's take a look at the other side. This one is gold, you can see the gold wash coming off and underneath, is a chrome or a nickel finish underneath the gold. On the front strap it's almost all gone, same way with the back strap. Let's compare back straps; they're very similar. So this is an example of engraved from 1938.

Moving on to the 127 range

Let's go to the next grouping and this is in the 127 range. These two, if you take a look at these, they're both in the 127. If we take a look at our sheet, we can see that the 127 range there was a group of engraved guns pulled off the factory floor and this was now 1939. Now here's an educational piece for both of us. This one is actually later, the serial number is later than this one. But this one is Crown N, this one is Eagle N. It also has a red grip which didn't show up until about 1940. So the red grip is too early, again, somebody could have switched the grip. But if I take this at face value this gun was pulled off the factory floor in 1939.

Were they pulled from the factory floor?

But that Eagle N as opposed to the Crown N, tells me this one was engraved first, this one sat around for a while maybe six months to a year and then came out with the Eagle N and the red grip, which didn't exist in 1939. So that's just further evidence that they pulled them off the factory floor. In fact, I'll go a step further and I will say that they pulled them off the floor and just did the frame and the slide. Then later when they're ready for the order, they pull out the other parts and engrave them separately. And I'll show you why in a little bit, why I believe that. Again this is just my conjecture from studying these. If you have another opinion, you're welcome to respectfully submit it.

Different engraving patterns

You see the front, again similar pattern on the front strap. These are both 7.65. A little bit different on the back strap. Now, this I see quite a bit, this is a ribbon pattern. This is just a straight engraved pattern, this is a ribbon pattern. I see that a lot. We can see that the ejection port is not engraved. This grip screw is engraved, this one is not. But the safeties are engraved. This one is a floral pattern, I can actually see flowers here. So a little bit of a different floral pattern and so far we can see that oak leaf is the most popular and floral is coming in a second. And this one is, that's oak leaf but there you see that ribbon again. So this was a little bit different, whoever engraved this one added a little flare to it. You'll see it on the back tang, you'll see the oak leaf and if we get really close you can even on the factory engrave, you'll see the veins in the leaves. That's how ornate it was and then you see the stippling in the blank space. Just so much effort went into these. Beautifully engraved guns. 

PP’s in the 215 range

So here's what's really exciting as I study this stuff. From here, this whole second half of the table, every one of these is in the 215 range. In fact, any gun that I've ever seen, any PP in the 215 range has been an engraved gun. If you look at the sheet one more time, it's in bold because from 215153 all the way to 215934. So basically the entire 215 serial range from 1940, these are all engraved guns. And you'll find them in silver, you'll find them in nickel, you'll find them in gold but by far the most exciting engraved guns come from this period of time in the 215 range. 

Famous people who owned engraved PP’s in the 215 range

So let's focus for a little bit on this 215 range because within this range as I do research, here's a list of famous people that had an engraved gun in the 215 range. First of all General Patton actually got two from in this serial range. 215297p is in the West Point Museum. It was presented to Patton by the troops who captured the factory. They got a gun like this one and they engraved General Patton and then they also have a symbol of the unit on either side and that gun is in a West Point Museum. There's also a second one. He's the only General that we know of that actually got two. He got a second one in the museum at VMI - Virginia Military Institute. So he was presented with two.

General Eddy also owned one of these

And then also General Eddy who was the commander of the 90th Infantry Division, they were the ones that took over the factory and either his men had it engraved with his name on it or he did it himself. So in other words, they captured a gun like this and then they put General M. S. Eddy and it was presented to him. Again he could have done it himself, had it done because they captured the engravers and gave them work to do and I'm sure they paid them to make some engraved guns.

Major Sinclair

They also made one for James Sinclair, Major James Sinclair. I actually have a picture of that one. That sold on Rock Island Auction. He was a major in the 90th Infantry Division.

 

Even Private First Class Beckman

And just to show how egalitarian the US Army was, a private first class E. W. Beckman of the 90th Infantry Division was also given an engraved gun with his name on it because he distinguished himself, valor in the face of the enemy and won the distinguished service cross and he has an engraved PPK with his name on it and says Private First Class E. W. Beckman. 

These were put together after the war 

Now let's go through these one at a time. This one is a good example of what I was talking about before because you'll notice that the trigger guard is not engraved. The trigger is not engraved and remember I said the triggers were always engraved and the trigger guard was always engraved. These are not, there are no proof marks which means it was never fired, never test-fired, never issued and these smaller pieces were never engraved. This is in the blue which it shouldn't be and the trigger is in the blue which it shouldn't be. So my conjecture was these parts were in the factory at the end of the war. Soldiers were getting them for themselves, in some cases presenting them to fellow officers and fellow servicemen. They put this together and all they had engraved in the factory was the frame and the slide and then they put the rest together and took it home. You can see the bottom is engraved, notice the front strap, oak leaf and acorn. A beautiful gun but again picked up at the factory at the end of the war just like this one.

Ready, but never presented

Now this one, this is a presentation grip and this one it could be silver because you see a lot of tarnish. You'll notice there's no proof mark but it does have an engraved trigger guard and trigger. The safety is not engraved, the grip screw is not engraved. Take a look at the back strap. See some similarities there, beautiful guns. Front strap, see some similarities there, beautiful guns. And this one, in particular, has no writing on the panel. It was all ready to be presented but never presented. Just like the twins on the PPK made in '44, they were never presented. So they're in the factory at the end of the war, brought home by an industrious GI. 

Pressing on, who was Albert Speer

Let's keep going in the 215 serial range. One famous German that had an engraved 215 serial range, in fact, it is 215361 was Albert Speer. Albert Speer was called the architect of the war because he was an architect but he was put in charge of war production and very effective in his job. We know it was his gun because he survived the war and he identified it as his gun. It was a golden engraved, similar to one of these. At the Nuremberg Trials, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison and spent that time at Spandau Prison. I think he was released just before he died.

The serial range engraved guns

Let's move on to this gold engraved gun. This one you can see beautiful oak leaf. Again there's no engraving in the ejection port but engraving here. I suspect that is not the original grip or screw but somebody added that. Not sure why because that's not engraved and a beautiful gun like that it would have been engraved. Also, it would not have been blued it would have to be gold. But we know this is factory engraved because of the serial range, that's the point I keep making over and over. It's all about the serial range, engraved gun.

Engraved but never issued

Here's another one. These are all sequential by the way so the only order I'm doing them in is the sequence in which they were made. So this one is next. 215342 and you can see how close together these are, 215317 and so on. They're all within 10 - 20 numbers of each other. Right away you guys are really smart because you can see right away, never issued, no proof marks but it's engraved all the way around. Not sure about the finish, could be nickel. It's just interesting where this one is bright all around this is dark in the recesses, so I'm not quite sure about that finish. But you see the very similar front straps and back straps. You also get to see the variations in the grips. These brown grips as I said were presentation grips but in this case, it should be gold, so somebody might have switched that. It seems like there's a lot more that were never issued because here's another one, 215368.

 

These must have been captured and brought home

This one, not engraved here, not engraved here. So again somebody picked it up. Maybe the reason there's so many of these is because the ones that were issued stayed in Germany, they were probably hidden away. If they were presentation guns they were worth a lot of money and you were supposed to turn them in at the end of the war and I would assume some of the civilians did not do that. But these were all captured at the factory and brought home by the GIs, so therefore in the United States, these unissued ones are a lot more plentiful, probably a lot more plentiful than they would be in Europe. But certainly there's some good engraved guns still showing up in Europe. So that's an example like the others.

Truly fascinating guns

Now we're going to get into some that are truly fascinating and phenomenal guns. In fact, I'll just let Randy scan this last row. And again these are sequential. So the early 215 range, looks like a lot of them stayed in the factory and were never issued. All of these except for one I think, not sure this one was ever issued. All of these are issued. These are all a little bit later but they're 215, 36, 36, 38, 39 and this one is special. There's no serial number on that one, so I saved it for last and I'll talk about it last.

The guns issued to high ranking party leaders

This gun is an amazing gun because this is the way they looked when they were given to a high-ranking party official. They had the Party Leader Eagle and they had initials. So for example, Victor Lutz had an engraved gun like this one presented to him in 1938 and it has, you can see the VL is on the grip. It's an ivory grip with V L and he's got the Party Leader Eagle. Victor Lutz was the head of the SA after Ernst Rohm. So when Ernst Rohm was killed, it moved out of the way in a coup, Victor Lutz became the head of the SA and he had a gold engraved gun. There's a picture of it, it sold at Rock Island. I did bid but I dropped out way before the end of the auction.

Could it be Hermann Goring?

And this one, the initials, this one is GH or HG, so it could be Hermann Goring. I just can't say for sure but it definitely was a high ranking party official because on this one you can see it's a deeper engraving, it was gold-covered but that all wore away, this was not stored really well. It could have been Hermann Goring's but I can't say that because there are dozens of Hermann Goring guns. But this definitely went to a high ranking party official, you can see how ornate the engraving is.

The Deep Engraving is beautiful

One of the really cool features is under here. You'll see on these engraved guns how beautiful they are underneath and then look at these front straps, how deep the engraving is. Just absolutely beautiful. Back strap, this one is clearly in much better condition. There's no initials on this one but you can see the quality and again it's called a deep engraving. You'll notice the difference, regular engraving is nice but the deep engraving is just so much deeper. You can see the difference there on the deep engraving. So these went to high ranking party officials. You had to have a lot of clout to get one of these. This got a lot of special attention and you just have to feast your eyes on this for a little bit because you'll probably never get to see anything like it again. Even that button is engraved. You'll now see that the ejection port you can see the Eagle N, the ejection port is engraved. This one you see the similar ejection port. You see the Eagle N, ejection port engraved. The button engraved on both of them, whereas over here, the lesser guns you don't see the button engraved. Even this magazine is deep engraved. And if we jump ahead to this one, the magazine may not be original but the button is engraved. The ejection port is not engraved but this is ivory with a beautiful engraved. It was issued, see the Eagle N. See the front strap and the back strap and then I mentioned on the underneath side you can see a pretty ornate pattern underneath. Clearly this one was more deeply engraved. Just look at that, just amazing.

 

Who were these issued to?

So these two and the final one I'm going to show you, these two were definitely high ranking party officials. I don't know who this was issued to, it's lost to history maybe someday they'll find some records but just take a look at that, just absolutely amazing. This had to be engraved while the metal was still soft because they couldn't do it that deeply in hard metal. 

1941 - The last of the engraved guns

So I skipped over this one because this one is a lot like the earlier ones. It was issued. These are from 1940, so the war has started but the Germans are still riding pretty high because they just went through Poland, Belgium and France really really quickly. So they're king of the world and they're putting out these engraved guns, just beautiful. By 1941 they pretty much stopped putting out engraved guns.

Engraved guns for friends and soldiers

They completely stopped until 1944 when Himmler evidently decided to give out some engraved gifts to some of his friends and so he ordered some guns. I did a video about a presentation 38H to a sniper who had a certain number of kills I did a whole video on that and that was in '44 and we know that he also ordered some engraved PPK's to be given out too. Sometimes they would just have his signature on it and it would say to the bravest or something like that. So for your loyal friendship, sometimes. So he would do engraved guns and sign them with special presentations to friends or morale boosters for heroic soldiers.

This gun was clearly going to the highest of political leaders

So this last one I want to show you is truly unique and I want to say a little bit about it. First of all, I don't believe these are...these can't be the original grips. This gun was probably in the factory at the end. It was meant to be for the highest of political leaders because the only one that I've ever seen that has this configuration was Hitler's engraved gun. We have a picture here. The pictures are not great, not too many people have seen it. But in April of 1939 on Hitler's birthday he was presented an engraved Walther from the Walther factory and that has been documented and we don't know that he ever carried it. It definitely was not with him when he died. So people say he shot himself with a golden grade PP, that's not true. He probably stuck it in a drawer.

They engraved over the logo

He was given a lot of gifts. Every time he visited factory it was customary to give him a gift. This gun was given to him on his birthday and what's unique about it there's no serial number on it. If you look at every one of these engraved guns the one thing they don't take out is they never take out the Walther logo. Every time they will engrave around the logo. This one they engraved over the logo and there's no serial number. And Hitler's gun is the only one that I've ever seen that had no serial number, no acceptance stamp and no logo. But this thing is deeply engraved, in fact, the second best one I have in terms of engraving is this gun. So just look at this ridge how they engraved that nicely compared to this. It is so deep and so well done. I think it was probably in the factory at the end with no grip on it and somebody brought it home.

A gorgeous engraved Walther PP

But this was definitely going to be presented to a very high ranking Nazi official. Here's the front strap and we can compare it to the one that was issued. In fact, here's the HG, high ranking HG and here's the bottom. Oh, they didn't do the button, maybe they're going to engrave that later. Look at the back of this and then let's take a look underneath here. Take a look at that, the similarities. Absolutely gorgeous. This could almost be a family crest. If it was a family crest we'd get a better idea but it just looks like part of the pattern. This is an oak leaf pattern but it's just slightly different. I've just never seen anything like it. This is an incredible gun, I believe brought home by a GI, taken out of the factory, deeply gold engraved and there was no grips on it so he just stuck a red pair on it. This is gold but it's not engraved and this side it the escutcheon is blued so that's why I don't believe this was original. But it's just a gorgeous engraved Walther PP. 

Contact us to verify serial numbers if you find one of these

There are a lot more engraved guns out there and certainly you can find them. Most importantly if you have an engraved gun send me the serial number I'll give you feedback or if you think it is period engraved or factory engraved please let me know but before I move on I just wanted to show a couple boxes.

The original presentation boxes

Many of these came in original presentation boxes when I opened them up. So this was the silver one and so it came with this magazine, a cleaning rod and a couple dummy rounds. So this is what the original case looks like. And this one is red I've seen a few red. The most common is a brown color and this one, there's a spare magazine, dummy rounds and again the cleaning rod the brown with the green interior and the red with the, I guess it's a beige interior. There's one other color that I've seen the exterior would be like a mustard yellow with a yellow interior. So the three cases that I see are the red, the brown and the mustard color that are original.

No post-war records

These blue cases are actually post-war and I should say all of these are pre-1946. After the war, Walther did make some beautiful engraved guns including P-38s, PP's and PPK's but post-war they do have factory records. So it's easy to find out which ones are factory engraved, not easy. You can look it up and find out which are factory engraved. These take a lot of research because the records were destroyed. The engraved post-war come in a blue box. The blue box are all post-war and they usually will have the Walther banner and fit a PP or PPK. And these sell probably $300 - $500 as opposed to $3,000 - $5,000 for the original cases. 

Mind Blowing Information

So once again we covered a lot of material. I hope you guys enjoyed that. It's mind-boggling, I love bringing these out and showing them to all of you. These came from various collectors, not all from me, so don't be too jealous. So I want as quickly as possible to put these away and get them sent out to the original owners because people start to get nervous when they're missing their beautifully engraved gun.

Contact us for the Serial Numbers!!!

And again, feel free to contact us for a list of the serial numbers. And if you have a serial number you'd like to report for our database please do.

 

Thanks for watching
Thanks for watching make sure you like and subscribe to our channel and think about forwarding this to one of your friends who might be a collector. If they're not a collector now, after seeing this they're going to start collecting. And make sure you hit the notification bell so that you're aware of the next time we post a video.