Band of Brother Luger

[Joe N]

Anyone else seen this one yet?
http://www.simpsonltd.com/product_in...roducts_id=731

[Will Brown]

Nice piece of history but c'mon, it is just a Luger with holster. No bit of provenance is woth 15 G's unless one has recently won the lottery. I have a terrific 1939 marked Luger with a decent holster and am quite happy with that.

Thanks for posting though. 15 thousand dollars...

[Von Hoth]

I don't see why there would not be plenty of luger collectors who would shell out 15,000 for this luger. the men of that company are some of the most famous of all the people who ever participated in the war.


think about it, these collectors are already paying close to 5,000 for lugers anyways, well, 3,000 to 5,000. Once you have passed the point of rationality, (and to me, luger prices are already irrational) what difference does it make? there were millions of lugers if you count WWI and WWII. But they still crazy prices.

so why wouldn't they just spend 3 or 4 times that for a luger that has this pedigree?
they could simply sell 4 to 8 of their lugers to make up for this fine one.

The dealers are already asking around 8,000 dollars for party leader ppk's.
and there were thousands and thousands of party leaders. ( i do realize that not all party leaders took the qualifying test and permit to receive the a party leader ppk, but thousands surely did)

but I have to admit, that luger BETTER HAVE THE CAPTURE PAPERS WITH SERIAL NUMBER. and even so, many veterans trades, and switched, maybe even by accident, war trophies.

not only would I want the capture papers, I would then trace the unit who signed the capture papers and make sure that this vet's division departed or reported to the signature's origin, etc.

[MauserKar98k]

I saw it before, there is also an Artillery Luger on that site that Winters also captured. The fact that I was captured by Major Winters would make it the crowning item of just about anyone's collection, considering that he and his outstanding conduct during the war is so well known. I would love to own it myself, but I've never even seen $15,000, let alone had it in hand to buy something like this!

[Joe N]

Yes, I too would love that one. I also have an all matching, first variation S/42 1937 P08 that came in a 1938 holster. My magazine is matching to the gun. Could be twins to Winter's P08. But there is no way I would ever get even a third of that for mine. Mine was brought home by a lowly Canadian private from the 9th LAAB. I was just looking around at values when I stumbled across his.

[stevezz1]

I seem to remember seeing an interview with Mr. Winters where he said he had a few Lugers but traded them for other items. The only pistol he kept was a PPK (or similar) which he thought had never been fired, and never would be.....
If the capture papers are authentic then this might had a little to the price but not that much....!!
Non matching mags. Also, the Luger looks to have a lot of wear but the holster does not...

I would rather have my 1936 rig with both matching mags.

Steve.

[hochadler]

Band of Brothers Luger

As expert, long-time collectors have always advised:
BUY THE GUN, NOT THE STORY...

[Josh Beckett]

I wouldnt pay that much for this pistol, I could buy a nice Type 99 LMG or an Iraqi Al Kadesih sniper rifle for this.

[MikeP]

Josh is making sense.

[Matt Weber]

As expert, long-time collectors have always advised:
BUY THE GUN, NOT THE STORY...

Hey, that's my quote!! I totally agree though! Major Winters is a combat legand, and true war hero, but 15k for a luger is a bit high even with his signature on it. You have to remeber that Simpson is usually, (an by that I mean always), very high on his prices. If this were priced around $9-10k, I think people would jump on it.

Matt

[nomadr]

Yes, Major Winters is a combat hero and a Legend.

But there are many more WWII Vets out there that although may not be a legend, but still are heroes! And many of us own pistols that they brought back! Those "bring backs" will always be just as valuable to me. And for a much more reasonable price.

God bless them all!

As far as Simson...they can ask for $$$$ as much as they want, but I believe they will sit on it for a very long time.

Bob

[Matt Weber]

Well said Bob! I totally agree with you here.

Matt

[hochadler]

Band of Brothers Luger

Matt: My apology for using your "eternal truth"! I've seen Orv Reichert use it in numerous postings where the story overshadowed the item. Like Eva Braun's samurai sword with SS runes.
Peter

[phild]

Too me the mantra "buy the item and not the story" is a good example of the double speak that pervades collecting today.

If the "story" is not worth anything why does most everyone want to know the background (such as what dealer/collector that an item came from or it's chain of custody since the war) on any item and pay more the permission to retain documents (I refuse to call them capture documents as most of these items were not truly "captured")?

I understand that verbal only information is of little value...much of it is true and much of it is not the item should stand on it's own. I also know that even paper documentation can and often is contrived and must be carefully evaluted.

The Winter's Lugers have paper with them, so they are backed by more than just a STORY! This paper must be examined and the provonance must hold up. Only after that can someone judge the "Band of Brothers" PR value that these items will gain. I feel sure that the conection will add a good bit to these Lugers (ie Dick Winters connection to these if real).

On a larger note I will say that the culture that we live in (both the popular one and the military collecting one) is influenced by a lot of hype or at the very least an unbalanced attention given to certain aspects. The recent popularity of 101st AB items in particular and all AB items in general is a little hard for me to understand.

I will say that this popularity can not be reflection (1:1) of the combat impact of these type units compared to around a dozen other Infantry and some Armored Divisions as the later have 2 to 3 times more KIA, days in combat, high awards and enemy engaged statistics than any of of the AB divisons....

Just some independent thoughts offered above...there are many ways to skin a cat.

[Joe N]

I wonder if his family had any interest in his firearms and militaria? I would imagine that they would prefer to keep them in the family. I would be curious, if this is truly one of Winter's liberated pistols, how it got into a private sale? ANything is possible I suppose. WHat I know for certain is that it is a beautiful P08 and Winters is one of many true heroes of the war.