Anyone know the history behind this?

Where did you get this? All the collectors I know say these are fakes. One turns up every few years or so. I don't know but I have never seen any documentation on them. I always thought they were prototypes made for the Bundesvehr. Norway made 1911s for Germany during WW2 but this ain't one of them (Kongsgberg).

It would make for an interesting conversation piece. Is someone selling this?

That banner looks iffy to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodhits:
That banner looks iffy to me.

As well as the finish.

quote:

Originally posted by Woodhits:
That banner looks iffy to me.

It looks a lot like the banners one sees on Chinese "Mauser" rifles.

A friend of mine bought it at a gun show 38 years ago. I know nothing about it other than that.

The Banner looks like a salt etch to me.

dave

The banner looks like exactly like on the genuine post WW2 Mauser HsC pistol I had.
Norway did not make pistol for Germany, they were seized by Germany.
the indication of caliber matches the norwegian practice and "prüfung pistol" means "proof pistol" litteraly translated but is closer to "test pistol"
probably something manufactured in Germany for Norway after WW2, just an hypothesis.

PS: Argentina as well uses 11.25 mm denomination if I remember correctly the Ballester Molina 1911 I used many years ago..

Under a magnifying glass you can easily tell that "prufung pistol" was engraved something like a New Hermes engraving machine with a tiny flat end end mill. The dead ends on all the letters circular/round.

quote:

Originally posted by D Humbarger:
Under a magnifying glass you can easily tell that "prufung pistol" was engraved something like a New Hermes engraving machine with a tiny flat end end mill. The dead ends on all the letters circular/round.

That would account for the waviness of the edges, if it was done freehand using a reducing pantograph engraver, the overall look would be good like this is, but have some waviness. The reduction feature minimizes the tracing errors, so you get a pretty good effect. If it had been done with a stencil and the pantograph, shouldn't have the waviness, as the stencil eliminates much of the variance involved in freehand work.

A lot of times salt etch shows the same variance; many times the stencil is done using a reduction on a photocopy machine, and the edge blurring makes the varying edge. The engraving is pretty deep for salt etch, the pantograph engraving makes a lot more sense. My thought was that it had been salt etched and then touched up with a round radius graver chasing the lines. That also causes wavy edges.

dave

"Prüfung Pistole" is definitely not something a German would write. "Prüfungspistole" would be grammatically correct but sounds awkward. A real German test pistol would be labeled "Versuchspistole" or something similar.

So most likely it's a fake.

Thank you JV.