Pimped Out Luger

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windjammer

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Pimped Out Luger***Pictures Added***

I saw a pimped out P-08 today. It belongs to my 82 yr old barber. he
brought it back from WWII. It looks like the standard Luger other than it's
Nickel plated. It's immaculate. Not a mark on it. Some parts are gold
plated. The trigger, extractor and some other small parts. The grips appear
to be hard rubber. Finely checkered, and black.

I don't know about Lugers. He has never fired it and doesn't care for
handguns. Said he could never hit anything with a pistol. He said all
anyone ever needs is a M1.

He keeps this in a safety deposit box and will give it to his son. It's not
for sale.

On top of the gun it's marked byf. S/n 1159 with the # 59 on all small
parts.

He doesn't have or know any history of the gun. He got his hands on it and
the holster in Italy before being shipped home after the war. He also
managed to bring home a German Dress Dagger.

Can anyone venture a guess what a pistol like this might be worth....?
 
Last edited:
Value to a serious collector? Zero.

A lot of Lugers brought back from WW II were plated, fitted with fake pearl stocks, etc. Ruins any collector value. As an interesting memento, hard to put a value on it. I am guessing (and it's only a guess) that such a Luger might sell for $500-$600 at auction.
 
Everything I've read about collecting Lugers indicates zero collector value. The small parts are more likely straw colored than they are gold plated. The nickel, or possibly chrome, plating was done here in the US after the war.
As it is, the gun might make an okay shooter or have some sentimental value.
 
Returning WWII vets were hard-wired, for some reason, to hard-chrome their returned Lugers, P.38s, Walther PPKs and Model 8s -- whatever they found over there and returned here. In the immediate aftermath of the war, in fact, a number of small operations were established in Europe to plate guns so that returning GIs could bring them home with a hearty shine. Of course, many of them were plated when they arrived back in the States as well.

Sadly, as noted, the collector value of these guns is pretty much destroyed by the plating; they are keepers for sentimental reasons or as shooters ... or, in extreme cases, where a collector wants to add one as an example of what happened to many of the guns in the aftermath of the war. (Some collectors view the Russian-captured P.38s in the same vein.)
 
SaxonPig pretty well nailed it; zero collector value and the nickel may have ruined it for shooting as tolerances are effected by the thickness of the plating.

The trigger and other small parts on a byf Luger would have been blued so gold plating of the trigger, etc. is likely. On earlier Lugers, the straw color was achieved by the heat treatment of the parts. They were the trigger, locking lug and ejector.

There should be a date above the chamber and the serial number on the front of the frame may have a letter suffix. All of that is important to record as many serial numbers were duplicated in previous and subsequent years.
 
By the time Mauser used the byf code, all the small parts were being blued. As noted, no military Lugers were factory plated.

For unique identification, a Luger record should include the manufacturer, the date, and the full serial number with the letter suffix if present.

Jim
 
42 is stamped on the receiver ring......The gun had been plated in Europe before my barber got hold of it.

He most likely could have got a blue one, but you know how non-gun people are....:)
 
Still even in that shape I wouldn't value it less than say, $750.

Mismatched guns have sold for more.
 
Hope it's a good shooter. Lots of Lugers were nickel plated by GI's after the war. Looks to be in decent shape.
 
It's a nice-looking Luger, especially with the matching numbers. Too bad it was ruined from a collector's standpoint with the chrome-job. You have to wonder if the returning GIs who had this work done would have gone through the process had they known what the effort would bring them years and years after the fact.
 
I would bet that if your cruise the "right" neighborhood and find the purple and gold super-fly caddy with the spinners inconspiculously parked near a busy corner you could approach the tall guy in the velvet outfit and make a deal.

My prediction is that you could get $700 for it with some sort of pharmecutical and a "date" thrown in as a bonus. Maybe two "dates" if you put some "pearl" grips on it.
 
I've heard them called cigarette guns. Because that is what the GI's
traded to have them nickled. Man at home had one like that except
it had clear grips with Hitlers picture under them. He said it was taken
off a high ranking German officer. I believed it then but not now.
 
it's a crime that that was done to an all-matching P-08...it looks like the rounded some edges in the buffing before plating...chroming a finely fitted pistol will throw off it's tolerences.

luckily it will have sentimental value for his son.

hearing the value a mis-matched P-08 reminds me of how much time has passed since i last priced one. i was talking to a collector, at a local gunshow, who had some "parts guns" and would sell me one for $200. he kept the parts guns for customers who wanted his "brushed finish" guns. he trued and polished the guns until they had a brushed stainless look. you had to keep a coat of oil on them as they were "in the white." unfortunately i was a straving college student at the time.
 
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