[johnboy]

"Cost" or manpower as a consideration for anything at this point in the war was not a factor. The Nazis were devouring countries and their resources (both materials and wealth) and they were creating their own state (and slave) labor forces by leaps and bounds. Cost of luger grips was nothing to them.

The "SS" you are thinking of, was already gone by '41 replaced by the waffen SS the need for which, rapid expansion had created. So if you think those black gripped lugers went to the waffen SS you're probably right. Along with wood gripped lugers, P38s, hi powers and everything else.

The waffen SS was not getting "special all black lugers" as cool as it sounds. JB

 

[mrerick]

The "Black Widow" is purely a post war marketing effort by Ralph Shattuck. He had a bunch, they were not particularly interesting to collectors, and he worked to make them move in the market. His promotion worked.

As suppliers found materials like hard woods in more shortage, they turned to other fabricated materials. Bakelite was one which used an early polymer with wood chips. Later in the war, the balance shifted more and more to wood chips because oil used in the polymers became more scarce, but when Ritzman started making the bakelite grips they helped cope with the shortage of walnut and other substitute hardwoods used in the grips. Mauser sourced such components from a number of different suppliers. The same thing happened as the Aluminum based magazines gave way to the polymer bakelite bases.

Since genuine original bakelite grips and the reasonably plentiful bakelite based FXO or E/37 accepted Haenel Schmeisser magazines could immediately make an otherwise nice 41 or 42 date Mauser matching Luger an ALL matching Luger with matching magazine, Ralph also put some of those together and sold them. I have one of them, a 1939 sold as a "Black Widow" to a buyer. While armorers could well of replaced broken wooden grips in the field or at unit armories with bakelite grips, this one had a brown Ritzman grip that Ralph had neatly painted black to match the other black bakelite grip. The ring from the can was still visible on the back.

Later, a number of modern manufacturers fabricated black grips out of modern polymers. These became widely available on the marketplace, which is why you need to do the hot needle test to make sure a grip doesn't melt, but rather will burn like original cellulose infused bakelite material. My first Luger came from a regional grip manufacturer that had used the grips as a casting mold model, then sold the Luger at a regional gun show.

BTW, if the Germans came up with the term, they might have called them "Schwarze Witwe"

 

[phila]

Some very interesting and confusing responses above. I’m not sure what points they are responses to but certainly nothing that I have written.
I’ve made the distinction and timeframe very clear in several specific sentences that the W-SS was the distinct organization to be equipped by OKW/OKH late 40 onwards. I may have shortened that to SS a few times after well establishing it was the W-SS.
No one is claiming that the phenolic grips went solely to the W-SS. I certainly made clear that I did not.
No one has claimed that the Germans applied the term black widow,
No one has demonstrated WHO or whom first applied the nickname or even why or If the nickname makes a dimes worth of matter with these guns. Come on lighten up Francis it’s just a nickname!

We all know that many black griped byf Lugers have been “boosted”, what types haven’t? We know that fake grips must be detected, what doesn’t? We all know some points to points to look for when evaluating a black grip Luger such as letter block and grip vs gun condition consistency.
Many imply that black grips (originals) have always been around in large numbers to boost any byf when in fact virtually all original black had to have been removed from one byf to put onto another byf! A very key fact never seemed to be mentioned! There were no crates of original black grips known to have been brought back by GIs or later “imported”.
As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. Maybe reading the actual content of posts would help.

 

[Sir_Ricardo]

......

The byf craze right now, is very atypical IMHO - I've never seen it like this for a particular type of luger.

My guess it's because of aesthetics. The all-black byf look is amazing ( gun + mag + grips + holster ), and brings to life the lethality of war. If you are into war relics, this is it.

This aesthetic also applies to the "Black Army" 1911s. They just look cool.

Thoughts?

 

[Sir_Ricardo]

...... I was curious if I could call my 1944 Hi Power with bakelite grips a "black widow Hi-Power" ......

I'd recommend "Black Power".

 

[phila]

I agree with the above. I would also agree with the “Black Army” comparison and think that I made the same point in an earlier thread. What’s more is that most every highly chased gun has very similar mystique that is part legend part myth part looks and part truth. It is pointless to complain about a firearms popularity and prices are market driven. I have made no secret here that I have a fondness for these 41 and 42 byf Lugers both with and without the composition grips. That said they are not my favorite variation and I think that there are some real sleeper or underpriced variations of Lugers that exhibit the highest standard of workmanship and can also be absolutely tied down regarding at least some of their specific historical use. I’ve given two hints there but I won’t say more as I’m busy scarfing these up before they become the next bubble to be complained about!

 

[Edward Tinker]

My guess it's because of aesthetics. The all-black byf look is amazing ( gun + mag + grips + holster ), and brings to life the lethality of war. If you are into war relics, this is it.

This aesthetic also applies to the "Black Army" 1911s. They just look cool.

Thoughts?

ah, yeah, thats a nope from me.

 

[Norman R]

I'm too lazy to read all the 47 posts above but what has not been mentioned so far, I believe, are the huge contribution that the black bakelite unnumbered magazines make to the "Black Widow's" popularity. . They make it so much easier to assemble an "all matching" rig!
Norm

 

[Vlim]

Quite funny. I bought a gun from a known SS member who fought until the very end in the Alp Fortress along the Tirol / Italian border.

His pistol? A battered old 1918 / 1920 marked Erfurt. Or as Ralph would call it: an ugly old widow.

 

[Sir_Ricardo]

......bakelite unnumbered magazines make to the "Black Widow's" popularity. . They make it so much easier to assemble an "all matching" rig!
Norm

Excellent point. Automatic all-matching numbers gun.

 

[phila]

Of course many, perhaps most, of the wooden gripped late byf 41 -1942 Lugers came from the factory with the black bottom magazines . I’ve been trying for over 40 now to find out if there was any correlation with the later byf Lugers as to magazine bottom type and grip type as they came from the factory. I realize that 40 years is not very much time for research but I’ve been unable to absolutely say that there was or was not. A bigger aspect is the obsession with numbered parts and then “all matching” parts. Any quick glance and most any forum dealing with German military weapons will reveal the “wanted” posts looking for a specific numbered part to make a gun “original”. I’ve even seen many Lugers with certain parts recently numbered to match that were never numbered originally for that variation! My favorite response at shows when asked “does it all match?” Is to respond “it didn’t last week but it does now!” Gun collectors today are mostly just frustrated coin collectors. Soon everything will be in sealed grading services tamper proof cases.

 

[Edward Tinker]

hey Phila, relax a bit with the sarcasm please or whatever you want to call it, this is how forums work, 15 people with 15 opinions.
You are trying to find out if fxo black bottoms and black grips left at the same time.
Well when did they both first appear? At the same time is possible, but I doubt probable. They would use up the grips or mag bottoms until they ran out, so I'd assume they were overlapping.

 

[phila]

hey Phila, relax a bit with the sarcasm please or whatever you want to call it, this is how forums work, 15 people with 15 opinions.
You are trying to find out if fxo black bottoms and black grips left at the same time.
Well when did they both first appear? At the same time is possible, but I doubt probable. They would use up the grips or mag bottoms until they ran out, so I'd assume they were overlapping.

I will try to back off the sarcasm but there is no shortage of it in most posts in this thread. Actually most of that is my lame attempt at some some humor to lighten things up.
Yes, it seems that the full introduction of both black magazine bottoms and the black grips were sometime around the summer of 1941 based on some written documentation and a lot of collector observation seems to support that as well. Many say that around the s block of 1941 is a pretty close estimate.
The question is given that wooden grips continued to be fitted to 70-80% of all byf 41 and 42 from the s block until production end and we know that some Lugers had numbered aluminum bottom mags until the u block ( some report them in the v and w block even) then was there any effort made to use aluminum bottom magazines with only wooden griped Lugers? We also have evidence of un-numbered aluminum bottom mags PERHAPS being issued from the factory with byf Lugers thru 1942 intermittently along with black bottom mags in probably most 1942 byf Lugers. You can find post s block byf Lugers with matching numbered mags and black grips but I have no idea if those grips were post factory added or not. It seems very clear that there were many tens of thousands of aluminum bottom mags in stock at the time of the introduction of the black bottom and it took at least 5 months to use them up and maybe as long as 18 month to use them. I guess some will say that there was no attention paid to what magazine bottom type was “put” with with either grip type and maybe that’s right.

 

[Edward Tinker]

ya, you're fine, it was my work today, what a pain

 

[Edward T]

Didn't Hallock & van de Kant say roughly the "q" letter suffix block, in 1941, is where these phenolic grips/magazine bases started appearing...???

This is from memory, did not pull out my copy of the "Mauser Parabellum" book, from the above two authors...I remember reading a post from a Forum member talking to Joop, saying he was sure the phenolic supplements coming out started to appear, to him, to be in the "r" suffix letter block...but Joop interceded and mentioned that it was even one letter suffix block before that...thus being the "q" block...then the Forum member said, "he stands corrected"...I know who that Forum member is, but let's see if he will interject on this posting...

Edward

 

[4 Scale]

Didn't Hallock & van de Kant say roughly the "q" letter suffix block, in 1941, is where these phenolic grips/magazine bases started appearing...???

Out of curiosity I looked; my "Mauser Parabellum" says the black grips began to appear sporadically around June 1941, which would roughly be closer to the "t" block. I could not find a specific block named for the black grip introduction, just the date.

However I found the larger discussion p. 239 entertaining:

"Many years ago the term "Black Widow" was coined within the Luger sales industry...the SS supposedly used these pistols. There are no facts to support this advertising ploy; however the sales pitch worked very well at the time and even today among the new Luger collectors."

I had an all matching wood gripped 41 byf that was re-blued. I never liked the look and sold it. Purely subjective but I didn't like the chamber date marking, as it was different from the earlier Mauser P 08 style (byf chamber date is two digits and a different type style). To me it brands the byf series as an obsolete device being phased out and I just didn't like seeing that.

 

[Left Hand Thunder]

Didn't notice the right side proofs...then I see it is in the "a" suffix block...so a VERY late '41 byf...I just looked at the condition...yes, 135/135 proofs...somewhat rare to be sure...

Edward

Edward ----- I just read your posting above concerning the "135" right side proof on luger pistols. I have a black widow byf 42 luger with the 135 proof stamps. This luger is all matching except for the aluminum bottom mag. and is in approx. 97% overall condition. It rests in a very good original "eqr 42" black hard shell leather holster. There is a loading / stripping tool in the inside flap of the holster with a small proof stamp just below the hole in the tool. The luger's serial number's suffix block is "k" . Would my luger fall into the category of "somewhat rare to be sure"?

 

[Batty67]

So, I started this thread 3 months ago. I guess it is safe to say the "BW bubble" has yet to burst as high condition byf 41s and 42s rigs with black bakelite grips and FXO magazines are north of $6k.

 

[Left Hand Thunder]

As I mentioned above, I have a 41 byf luger in 98% over all original finish with black Bakelite grips and FXO (un-numbered) Aluminum mag. in an original 1941 dated holster and a proof stamped loading tool in the flap pocket, I wouldn't take $10k for this set up. What a crazy world we find ourselves locked into.

 

[Like_Old_Guns]

Seems like the market for the BW and associated parts continue to heat up. A nice condition FXO black bottom magazine sold for $505.00 on Monday. Original grips and a magazine could cost a grand.