The Mother of all Luger Collections

[james m]

I don't know how many of you are aware of this but Ralph Shattuck, the well known Luger collector/dealer passed away in July. Pictured below are a few photos of his personal collection taken by the appraisers. It's my understanding that the pistols have been put into storage for now. I expect they will surface at one of the auction houses eventually.
Jim
http://www.legacy-collectables.com/i...es/Page399.htm

[FestungSpanien]

The holy grail

[Bryant U.]

That's just shocking.

[Johnny Peppers]

Ralph died July 28, 2010 on his 81st birthday. For many years we were set up right across the aisle from Ralph at the big Tulsa show, and up to the last time we saw him there he was still accumulating Lugers.

[mg42rip]

very nice

[rajko84]

[Luis22]

I hope the guns end up in the hands of collectors as passionate as he was..

[Felix]

Holy smoke... What a collection! It is just awesome to see them all together... Imagine if laid out on their sides....

Cheers,
Felix

[Alan Smith]

My understanding is that a very wide range exists as to the quality and originality of the Parabellum pistols found in this collection. Some are 100% correct guns that would be very desirable to advanced collectors; many others, however, do not exhibit these characteristics.

Thus, it will be very interesting to see how skilled the auction house is at accurately grading and describing each item, as well as how the auctioners choose to group the items for sale.

BTW: The foregoing is simply a factual statement, not a personal comment towards the deceased. I liked Mr. Shattuck a lot and enjoyed my visits with him at shows. One of my fondest memories in collecting firearms is when a good friend of mine (who was very well known to Mr. Shattuck) first introduced me to Mr. Shattuck when I was about 25 years old. Mr. Shattuck and his wife were extremely nice to me, showed me every gun on their table, and invited me to come out West and vist them at their home. Later, my friend fessed up and said that before introducing me he had told Shattuck that I was a young man "who had just inherited several million dollars" and was "eager to get into Luger collecting". While yes, I was young and eager to collect Lugers, unfortunately the having "inherited several million dollars" part of the story was not true.

[james m]

That's one heck of a story Alan!
I concur with your assessment of Shattucks collection and didn't mention it in my original post nor will I go into any detail here. I too believe in not speaking ill of the dead.
I will say this. Although his shop was located less than a half hour from me I never bothered going there in all the years I've lived in Arizona.
Jim

[coloprimus]

hello,
really amazing arsenal,
Cheers, Pierre

[afrikasandman]

That is an amazing collection of lugers! I only know of 1 collection that is possibly larger and belongs to a man in the midwest. His last count a few years ago was 197 lugers in his collection and around another 400 ww2 german marked pistols. The guy is a firearms dealer and his collection is quite amazing. I have only seen a little bit of it in the years I have known him. He also has a beautiful SS SD helmet and totenkopf marked scope he was able to pick up from the vet that shot the SS sniper, even got pics from the vet of him holding the helmet next to the sniper. The soldier took the rifle but got tired of carrying it and took the scope off several weeks after he killed the guy and threw it in a river but kept the scope. There are amazing collections out there! Matt

[robcox1]

A number of years ago (before you could post questions on-line) I called Mr. Shattuck with a question about a Luger before I made a purchase. He didn't know me and had nothing to gain, but was very gracious with his time and knowledge. I am sorry to hear of his passing.

[Matt Weber]

Sad to hear that Ralph passed away. He was "Mr. Luger".

My only story of Ralph is "the one that got away". I had an eye on an early "S" date Krieghoff luger (3 diget serial number with the fine wooden grips!) I had made the guy an offer, and he promised he would sell it to me.

However, unknown to me, the guy took the luger to the Vegas show with him, and ran into Ralph! Of course Ralph out-bid my offer by a ton, and the guy sold the luger to Ralph!
I'm still a bit mad about it, but it wasn't Ralph's fault. He was just doing what he did. I'm curious to find out if that "S" date is in his collection still though. I would love to get it back, since I feel it was promised to me.

Matt

[Douglas Jr.]

It just make me wonder what will happen with our collections once we are gone... a lifetime passion ends just like this.
Not blaming anyone, just thinking...

Shattuck was a driving force in Luger community for several years.
Luger collecting is what it is today in great part because of Shattuck.

Douglas