Nice large ring C96

It's an interesting gun in great shape. Looks being original on pictures. Note the 5-digit s/n is stamped vertically on the hammer, just like an Italian Contract pistol (there are also some Italian with horizontally stamped hammer). The hammer on non-Italian Flatside is usually stamped horizontally, 3-digit. But those are later Flatside (later than this one). On this so called "Early Flatside", I would believe this is a split-hair sub-variation due to its special hammer stamping, although I have also seen early flatside with 3-digit horizontal stamped hammer. Everything on this one is same as Italian, except markings. You must be very proud to own this one.

Really beautiful broom handle. Even tho it is mismatched, photos of the stock would have been welcome as well. Thanks for showing.....Alvin, great comments and observations.

Beautiful C96 Flatside.
Thanks for taking your time to photograph it and share it with us.

This must be one of the best flatsides out there!

I believe this C96 is very original,actually looks like it has never been in a stock.This flatside belongs to mr Logan,who has had it for over 40 years [it lives in a old sock in the back of his safe.].The early cone hammer [last week] is also his.Alvin your expertise of the C96 is invaluable to this forum.

OP- beautiful pistol, thanks for posting.
The other two are fine to look at too!

Thanks for posting these early C96's. I really love seeing the early cone hammers & large ring pistols & yes they seem to be becoming harder to come by. I've learned a great deal about these from the member posts here, thanks again for taking the time to share your collections & your knowledge.

Bob S said:

I really love seeing the early cone hammers & large ring pistols & yes they seem to be becoming harder to come by.

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The production volume was not big. When one shows up, it does not have to be very expensive either. There are opportunities. See this one:

http://www.gunauction.com/buy/12892570

Over years, JTD sold over ten thousand guns, including many C96. But this one was the only one attracted me (he sold many nice C&Rs, but my interest is narrow). Unfortunately, I remembered this one's end-auction date wrong. When I finally remembered, auction already finished. It's obviously a great buy.

I agree this was a great buy & VLD NY is my next wish (NY was my home town) one will surface but condition and what the budget will bear is always takes precedence. Mostly the later.

I don't know this being his consignment or not. It's from former Ralph M collection (only so many people have this, so tracing back is not hard). If it's not consignment, he lost money selling it at this price. Of course, overall that's not an issue because he sells so many guns.

There is a book on Mauser, called "von Lossnitzer, Technical Director of Mauser. An Oral Recollection". He talked how Mauser exported newly made rifles and pistols in 1920s. It's a pretty complex process -- Mauser bought a small factory in Swizerland, shipped rifles without bolts in and bolts separately to there, so those were not considered being complete guns, just parts. The purpose was obviously working around regulations of that time. In Swizerland, rifles were re-assembled, inspected, test fired and shipped out as guns. The same thing was done on 7.63mm Bolo.

So, Swizerland facility played an important role in this game.

Large Ring Hammer C96 either has firing pin retained by a small dovetailed retainer, or it has a single lug firing pin. I have never seen a Large Ring having two-lug firing pins. Not supposed to find one either -- even early small ring hammer C96 had single-lug firing pin, the hammer changed before firing pin changed. Not sure why factory wanted to change the firing pin though.. Dovetailed retainer was awkward to disassemble and assemble, changing to single-lug firing pin made lots of sense. But I did not see any disadvantage of single-lug firing pin. It's actually easier to make than later two-lug pin -- that's reflected in many Chinese copies of 1920s, many copies copied everything but did not copy two-lug firing pin, they chose to copy early one-lug pin because it's easier to make.

Not being as knowledgeable in the terminology/variations as you Alvin. What I meant was that it had the small retainer, I would not describe as dovetailed. I assumed that it was for the single lug firing pin. Am I correct in saying that the retainer is typical on all Conehammers?

Regards,

It's commonly believed single-lug firing pin first appeared on Italian contract pistol. All conehammers that I have seen had dovetailed retainer to hold firing pin in place. Those early Large Rings mixed with conehammer also had dovetailed retainer.

Could there be a C96 above s/n 20000 with dovetailed retainer? In theory, not impossible, but none showed up yet. According to von Lossnitzer, to maintain pistol making business running -- not making profit, just kept it running covering the cost, the factory need to make 50-80 pistols per day. Early Mauser's production obviously ran short of this number. At low production, they did not make money, so they probably did not have large amount of spare part to digest after design change. That would explain why early Mauser's transition does not involves large number of guns with mixed features.

alvin said:

It's commonly believed single-lug firing pin first appeared on Italian contract pistol.

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In a Swiss Army report about tests with selfloading-pistols in November 1898 is mentioned, that Paul Mauser II (the nephew of Paul Mauser) showed the Swiss authorities a prototype with simplifications for stripping the bolt. I guess, that this was most likely a pistol which already had the single-lug firing pin.
Short time later Mauser used this improvement for the Italian contract pistols - that fits.

Alexander