[nico]

Hello,

In short, I recently acquired two service guns that belonged to a policeman (Gendarmerie). I was interested by one, a good 9mm, but the deal was to buy both. The other one was an old FN 1910 .32 ACP ...

I started to read a lot on its history (looking forward the next Mr Vanderlinden's book!), and I tried it one time at 25 meters (and I liked!).

I wanted to discover more, put an age on it, find more information on when they were ordered by the Switzerland and so on, but didn't find much about it (on wikipedia you can see a FN 1910 of the Gendarmerie of Vaud, with a serial number 5xx xxx).
Mine has a serial number 128 xxx. After what I've read here, it was probably made between 1920 and 1925 (1922-1923?).

The writings on the barrel are pretty unusual ; no caliber indication:

Some writings inside the horn grips (does "23" mean year 1923 ?)

And now I have some hesitations to use it again, especially since the grips starts to crack, and because it could be a piece of history.

Maybe I could buy some new grips and store carefully the old ones if I want to continue to use this gun.
But I'd like some of your informed opinions, and if someone has some documentation about the history between the FN 1910 and the Switzerland I would be grateful.

Regards,

Nico.

 

[Deutschland]

It seems you have been bitten by the FN bug! Welcome to the forum!

Based solely off of the markings, there does not seem to be anything to indicate specific Swiss usage. The barrel being numbered where it is is somewhat unusual, but is not uncommon either.

I seem to recall that Glaser out of Zurich, if I am recalling correctly, I know he was at least based in Switzerland, was a major FN distributor. That is where your FN may have came into Switzerland from. Anthony Vanderlinden may chime in to add his thoughts.

As far as grips go, you may be able to find post-war FN grips that could fit, or there is a company here in the USA called TripleK that manufactures new made grips for many pistols. They would require some fitting but should work for you so that you can shoot your FN without concern of breaking the originals.

 

[scandiknivars]

It is quite possible that the policeman bought the pistol commercially as a backup weapon. That is a common occurrence worldwide. Nice acquisition.
Thanks for sharing.
Dan

 

[Edward Tinker]

Very nice, you did good.
I just talked to my son and his wife they live in Basel.