Luger. … but I would always choose an inherited piece. If I did not want it…another family member that did want it would get it.

That nickle plate gun is not what I’m trading for. The guy my dad got the guns from was a WW2 pilot. Both guns were his. That colt is a 38 super. Great shooting gun. Still waiting on pics of the gun I’m trading for. I expanded the search for Singer and Remington 1911’s.

Keep
The
Luger

Keep the Luger. I have numerous 1911s including WWII and Model 70 Commanders and Gold Cups. A numbers matching Luger is hard to come by.

Kinda funny, being on a Porsche forum and all. That being said, I’d keep the Luger. Where in Florida are you?
I might have something to trade.

I changed my mind .... keep the Luger ... buy a Colt ... then buy a Ruger :D

I’ve decided to keep it. Looked closer today even the holster has the same #’s as the clip, gun etc. Sadly I never got the story on the neighbor who gave it to my dad as to how and where he acquired it. Two weeks after he gave it to me he and my mom both got that first strain of covid. My mom was dead in a week and my poor old dad lingered for 4 months but couldn’t really communicate. There is a lost safety deposit box that had all kinds of important documents, rare coins, rare jewels etc. called every bank in the town they lived in, over 42. No good.

Eventually the bank should turn over the contents of the safety deposit box to the state as unclaimed property. It's not like they're going to leave the box forever without someone paying for it.

I was going through my father's papers, and it looks like he brought home a 9mm pistol after the war. No idea what happened to it. I never saw it, but then again there was a lot of time between the end of the war and and my birth. I did find a belt buckle, but it's rusty.

are Lugers accurate? I know nothing about them except the basics.

(I'd trade it for a Staccato 2011) hehe.

Their fixed barrel contributes a good deal to their inherent accuracy, similar to the Walther P38. There were a few guys in the 1950's converting them to.45 ACP for use in NRA bullseye competition so they would qualify for the .45 class (bullseye requires three guns, a .45, a "centerfire", and a rimfire). The Lugers were so much better than 1911s that the NRA eventually changed the rules to exclude them, changing them to ".45 service pistol".

So, yes, they certainly have the potential. Whether any given example is accurate is subject to the same vagaries of any other design.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734025925.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734025925.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734025925.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734025925.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734026176.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734026176.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734026176.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734026176.jpg

Looks like a typical wartime German pistol. They kinda gave up on making them look pretty in the interest of production numbers.

Here is my P38 that my father in law gave me. He picked it up at Anzio. The dagger is from one of my uncles, who retired as a Colonel from the German Army. It's a WWII era officers' issue.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734033194.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734033194.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734033194.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734033194.jpg

I was mistaken regarding the "fixed" barrel on the P38. It does, in fact, travel rearward with the slide for about 1/4" before disengaging, it just doesn't tilt down like a 1911. The Luger does have a fixed barrel, though.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734033798.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734033798.jpg

Les, I honestly didnt expect the SN on the holster to be written in.

And is it authentic?

looks like he had to turn the last number from a 6 into a 8? hahha..

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734113797.jpg
The man on the left is my father in law. They had been doing some souvenir hunting in the caves of Okinawa. Their ship was a supply, marine troop ship. They had gotten permission to explore the caves after things settled down. He said the smell was enough to make you toss lunch so many Japanese had blown themselves up rather than be captured. On the way back to Pearl Harbor the captain announced over the pa to ditch any souvenirs. He pitched it overboard but said a bunch of guys didn’t and got away with it.

From what I heard my grandfather had a Japanese flag and, I think, a sword or something. I heard that the flag was lost to pests of some sort. I never saw anything else. I don't know if my grandparents threw that stuff out when they moved or maybe it went to my uncle or what. Apparently, my grandfather didn't talk about what he saw much. I don't think he was "in the action". I think he had one of the support jobs, driving a truck or something more mundane like that. But I think he was in Japan at the end of the war. I think I've heard that he was involved in POWs coming home or something.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734120558.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734120558.jpg
The ship he was on and the invasions the completed. Until our daughter interviewed him for a paper in HS he had never talked about it. After that the floodgates opened and he told some great stories. He was the pilot on numerous landing craft landings getting shot at. He and his brother splashed a kamakazi using their 5” anti aircraft gun. The pic was a publicity photo. They were also hit several times without too much damage. http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1734121164.jpg

My father in law presented me with the P38 at their first big family gathering, a kind of "meet our new son in law" sort of an affair. I was the only gun enthusiast in the family, and he wanted me to have it.

When he handed it to me, one of his sisters exclaimed "Orv, I didn't know you had a gun!" (Gasp...)

My father in law replied "I got it from a German acquaintance at Anzio".

His sister replied "my, that was awfully nice of him".