[Gercolctor]

A friend of mine was given a 7.65mm Ortgies pistol from his grandmothers house when the family was cleaning it out.

Pictures of Ortgies pistols in various gun books show a brass colored disc in both wooden grips with the letter D. This pistol has brass discs with the intertwined letters HO, which stand for the designer initials. Also the pistols in the books have the town of Erfurt marked into the side ledgen, where this weapon has different marking: Ortgies-Patent Deutsche Werke Aktiengesellschaft Berlin.

On the rear of this pistol, under the slide, but above the grip strap, has the marking: H24. There is alao a symbol of a lion in between the letter and the numbers. My model also has a rear full strap grip safety. About 98% blue. Serial 20870.

Any ideas as to the difference between my pistol and those illustrated? Any info would be appreciated.

Never handles one of these guns before. Impressed with the workmanship.

 

[Lloyd in Vegas]

Joe,

Your friend has a fairly early Ortgies pistol. The pistol was produced by Heinrich Ortgies (designed and patented by him) in Erfurt. Deutsche Werke AG in Berlin took over production of the pistol after Mr. Ortgies died and continued to operate the Erfurt factory.

The early grip medallions are an interwined HO (Heinrich Orgies) and were eventually replaced with the grip medallion you see most often with the fancy D for Deutsche Werke.

There were over a quarter million of the 7.65mm caliber Ortgies pistols produced before production ceased sometime around 1929.

It has been claimed and proven that some of these pistols (which were exported all over the world) were used by our own OSS (spies) during WWII. Those are in the serial range 17359---118319. There is a web site that identifies 4 or 5 Ortgies as assigned to the OSS in Washington DC.

They all (calibers 6.35, 7.65mm and 9mm Short or .380) have full rear grip safeties. The grip safety design and function is very interesting and is very clever with respect to how it works and what it does from a safety standpoint (besides just blocking the sear from movement) versus lets say the Colt 1911 grip safety design.

Some pictures would help refine exactly what some of the marks you mention might be i.e. commercial or military proofs etc.

Here is a web site that gives a fairly good but very short description about these pistols. http://www.vestpockets.bauli.at/
Go to the third icon down from the top on the left (Archiv) and look for the Ortgies picture and hit the E for English description dialogue.

I have all three caliber models in my collection and find them to be very interesting and very nicely made and finished pistols of very high quality.

Hope some of this helps.

 

[Gercolctor]

Lloyd
Thank you for the detailed information on the Ortgies pistol. I checked out the vestpocket web site and appreciate your lead into the page.

Yes, this is a very interesting hand gun. Never knew they were used by our OSS.

The lion and number of back, above the rear grip indicates it was issued to the Czech military.
Joe

 

[Dave Baird]

Bringing up an old thread, but the serial range on OSS pistols includes over 100,000 pistols? Sounds like a lot to me. Can this be double-checked, please?

Thank you, Dave