[Pete E.]

Swiss Mauser

New luger in my Swiss collection :

Some photos of my M1906/34 Swiss Mauser...serial number and proofs puts it around 1940 made-date.

M1906 style, SHORT frame, grip safety, matching serial numbers, un-numbered aluminum bottomed magazine...absolutely pristine, barrel bore has strong lands & groves but a bit of "frosting" in some areas.

Short frame may mean a left-over grip-safety frame of the short variety used for Portuguese Navy Lugers at Mauser at about the same time. The polished area at the thumb safety is cut deeply...probably to remove the old Portuguese marking of "Seguranca" in the left over frame before it was pushed into use for this commercial Swiss order.

Unusual Swiss stamping on the underside of the thumb safety lever; as shown in one of the photos. Maybe a Swiss replacement part...marked as " F27 + "


Opinions and critiques welcomed !


This is an odd gun, indeed...

1. It has a short frame/receiver...Swiss seemed to like the long framed M1906's. Actually...the type V short frame...from Professor Ron Wood's tutorial on frame styles on the Luger Forum...

2. It has the small Mauser Banner logo...which switched to the large Banner logo in the 1935-36 time frame.

3. It has three (3) Eagle/N proofs...which seemed to occur in the 1939 or 1940 time frame...

4. Receiver fork with its Swiss cross/sunburst crest may be a left-over from the DWM days that Mauser inherited. Lots of parts did go to Mauser from DWM. The receiver fork has the old DWM "pinwheel" that dates back to 1909 or so.

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[Pete E.]

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[Pete E.]

Same gun with some clothing...

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[Heinz]

Nice presentation, thanks!

 

[drbuster]

Pete, As I recall when you brought this interesting and wonderful piece to the Reno show, Ron Wood was very interested in the grip safety spring attachment. He felt it was righteous indeed. What was Bob Lewis' feeling as I remember his seeing it as well.

 

[Pete E.]

Hi Doc,

Ron Wood concluded my frame was forged for the grip safety design...not just added to a non-grip frame...

Bob Lewis held mine and compared it to his long frame he had at the show and with only 30-40 numbers separating the two. Bob said he liked mine as much as his...maybe mine a bit more. And he told me he had a similar short-framed one at his home, too.

Ron Wood posted that his friend John Eckert came to the Reno show after I left early and that John has a similar one to mine with its short frame/receiver...

I have a contact (Dr. Geoff Sturgess) in Europe that knows of 2 short-framed ones as well...

 

[lugerlou]

Pete

Very nice luger, looks like it has a lot of similarities to the Mauser police banner lugers.

 

[Joop van de Kant]

Pete,
A very nice and pristine Swiss Mauser banner you have there! I agree with you that it was assembled around 1940, also in view of the eagle/N proofs.

- The Mauser banner v - series are for collectors a source of constant confusion. I do have some so called 'Latvian contracts' in my collection, and there are two 1936 marked Lugers with a serial number close to yours. It gets more and more clear to me, that Mauser made batches of several 'contract' pistols, already marked all over, just waiting for the orders to arrive. We have seen that with the three lined Stoegers, with the Dutch Navies and now also with the Latvians. The only part that was screwed on at time of delivery was the barrel. This is my theory of course. But if this was indeed done so, it explains a lot!

- I wonder indeed why the Swiss struck the F 27 + mark on the lower side of the safety lever. That is indeed unusual, I never saw that before. I hope that someone knows why.

- It seems that either Mauser was not happy to be obliged to deliver the area under the safety lever 'in the blank', the Swiss way to show that the lever is up on 'fire', or may be it has been done later in Switzerland because Mauser forget to do it. But I think that the Swiss would have taken better care of the job.

- You know about the Swiss habit to take great care of their pistols. That included sometimes also a cosmetic facelift of the outlook of the pistol. That was an Army practise, and this is a commercial Luger, so I doubt if this Pistol got the same treatment; it stayed with its original coating to my opinion.

Congratulations with this rare piece.
Thank you for showing this to us.

 

[drbuster]

Joop, I like your theory about the "v" series Mauser contract lugers very much. It would help explain the existence of my Turkish contract #119 "v". See my post on Jan Still's Forum under Turkish, Bulgarian pistols.

 

[Jan C Still]

Pete
Outstandng presentation of a beautiful rare 06/34 Swiss Mauser Luger.
Thanks
Jan

 

[Pete E.]

Thanks Guys...

I have asked around about the "F27+" stamping on the side of the thumb safety lever...on the SwissRifles.com board and of several folks in CH as well...so far no info. or theories...maybe a replacement part...???

 

[Joop van de Kant]

Herbert,

Thanks for your support to my theory about the batches within the Banner 'v' series. Since June I am trying to put a coherent article together about the eight 'Latvian' contract banners I got from Eitan Feldmann's collection. The more I dig into the existing reports and old books, the more I get convinced that the 'v' series were sort of a garbage can for Mauser. It seems they used it for the existing DWM (BKIW) contracts they inherited, and also for new contracts that were established by Mauser itself between 1931 and 1940. I would not be surprised if we would find a double SN within the 'v' series, between two different ‘contracts’.
I intend to create a data base of all ‘v’ SN’s known. That might help us to understand better what Mauser indented and after all really achieved.

 

[drbuster]

Thank you Joop. I look forward to your completing your task. The "v" series, especially the early numbers, are a mystery and not recorded. Jan Still's book Third Reich Lugers and Weimar Lugers show a few in the under 100 series, all with DWM logos on the rear toggle. Keep us Forum members informed.

 

[Pete E.]

I spoke in length with Doug Smith of FGS on the phone this week about this Mauser Swiss.

He was particularly interested in knowing if mine had an original reinforced frame or not.

I will make plans to bring this gun to the SE NAPCA event in TN this coming up August...where Doug will have an extensive display of v-series lugers...it will give Doug a chance to do a detailed inspection of my luger as well.

As a side note, Doug indicated the odd "F27+" stamping on the underside of my thumb safety is an arsenal replacement.

 

[drbuster]

Pete, Could you post views of the inside of the rear wall of the rear frame well. I was of the opinion that reinforced frames demonstrated their differences in this area with the upper part of the frame well wall having more metal.

 

[Pete E.]

Sorry, Doc...

My camera is out for a while and I cannot manage it on the flat bed scanner...

Will do the photo you request in about 2 weeks or so...when it comes back from the repair shop...

 

[Pete E.]

Doc,

In response to Dwight's request in his "Re-inforced Frame" study posting, I took a look at the rear frame well inside my Swiss Mauser with its short frame.

The well is un-reinforced but does have the spur in the grips strap.

 

[Joop van de Kant]

Pete,

My research on the Mauser commercial 'v' series is progessing steadily. New data makes me believe that the Lugers having SN's between 3708v and 3900v consisted of mostly Swiss commercials (22 reported) and some commercials (4 reported). All the reported pistols have a 4 3/4" 7.65mm barrel. The confusing part however is the fact that the proof stamps are not at all coherent with the expected time scedule (1936), they should have either a small C/U (sign that DWM parts were used), or a bigger C/U (sign that only Mauser parts were used). But I found also BP (Berner Probe, 4) and Eagle/N (11). One commercial has 1940 on the chamber.

Looking further up in the 'v' series I found only two more Swiss reported, in the 8000v range (1939). I have learned not to drop into speculations, but keep myself to the facts.
The facts are:
In view of the scattered proof marks, these pistols were assembled / delivered between 1936 and early 1940.
Some were delivered 'unproofed' by Mauser to the Swiss, who struck the BP proof.
The Swiss started to produce 06/29 Waffenfabrik Bern Lugers with a P prefix for commercial sales.

Furthermore, I have learned that Mauser did not throw away any part. Everything was used and sold, sooner or later. The 'v' series have many of this 'stock sales' examples. Well, by telling all this I have shown a little part of what I am going to present to the Napca audience in August, during the Chattanooga convention. That is also where I can see your 'corpus delicti' 3721v...

 

[dcoffey]

Pete, I once owned a 1900 Swiss that had a replacement rear toggle link. The dished toggles were very different than originals.It was proofed E25,I always assumed the E was for a replacement part and the 25 was the year, but who knows.Doug

 

[Pete E.]

Hi Doug,

Interesting about your E25...

The stamping on the underside of the thumb safety lever is a bit different in that it reads as " F27 + ".

Based on the Eagle/Nitro proofs on my gun, it would date to April 1940 or later. A replacement part from year '27 would not make sense...IMO. Unless it was a part left over in CH somewhere and used many years later ?

Text Added : This was posted by Gerben in 2013 about the F27 marking, in another discussion thread.

http://luger.gunboards.com/showthread.php?34040-ID-safety-lever-swiss-contract&highlight=3721v

" According to the transfer papers that went from Bern to Mauser, the safety catch was produced by the company of H. Hösli in La Chau-de-Fonds. This does not offer an explanation for the marking, however.

The Swiss material lists do give us a description of F27, however. It is the steel type used in the construction. "