Why is this pistol special?

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Because there are only 70 of them modified that way? Personally that is 70 guns too much.
 
Some of his Luger stuff and P38 carbine conversions look interesting, but I am still not sure how a chopped P38 is worth $7K.

I guess you are buying the name and story.
 
I've heard of Mr. Martz and his work on Lugers, but never saw any Martz P-38's. He built a good reputation as a skilled craftsman but his work never got my interest, although many others found it worth spending money on. I would wager that a lot of that price is because of the name attached to it, as guns that were the product of a famous gunsmith generally command a premium when they get sold.
 
It.s like a work of art by a famous painter. Some look at it and say eeeh and others praise the aesthetics and simplicity willing to pay top dollar.

That's a nice looking firearm but, to me, not 7K worth of nice. I might give it a look if it was less than 1K but there are to many firearms that appeal to me and would buy before dropping that kind of money.
 
The listing says what is special about it. It’s up to you to decide whether that makes it special to you or not.

I’m not part of the particular collector clique that knows about those particular guns, so to me it’s just a nicely bubba’d milsurp pistol and - without any research/based on the photo alone - if I saw it listed for $200 I’d buy it and at $300 I wouldn’t. I’d then take it out and run a few magazines through it, and if it was reliable I would take it to the range from time to time. But for someone who has bought into the story about the gunsmith and origin collector? Someone who has some indoctrination in the values of that niche of weapons collecting? It might be worth $8500 or more, and it might go up in value over the years. I don’t buy into those values but that doesn’t make someone who does - or me - wrong. A thing is worth whatever a buyer is willing to pay, and if they can find a buyer who will pay $7000 that’s what it’s worth.
 
I know nothing of Jim Martz , and I mean no personal disrespect to him ... but a pimped out, chopped down P.38 offends my eyes.
 
I remember hearing about John Martz - it was probably when he died seven years ago. I also recall seeing that carbine. He was part of a generation that saw old war guns as commodities that could be tinkered with. He did great work, taking worn out and parts guns and not only making them shooters but attractive as well.

.455_Hunter said:
I guess you are buying the name and story.
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This is it exactly.

Seeing a P38 in an auction makes me wonder what became of the one I traded at a pawn shop years ago.
 
John Martz was a craftsman of the Old School. His work is flawless, but you'd have to appreciate that level of handwork. It is a little funny that folks hardly balk at the price of a Wilson Combat 1911 and yet are astounded by the going price of a gun with much more handwork.

I think I first heard of him on the Cover of Guns & Ammo or American Handgunner. Martz was best known for his Baby Luger conversions. His carbine conversions were also in high demand. All his pieces were guaranteed to function with Winchester 124gr ball ammo. He also offered a stunning finish on his work. It looked like stain stainless steel, but was actually bare metal which had been hand finished. (He also made the display stand)

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Likely his most ambitious offering was his "American Eagle" Luger. This was a Luger chambered in .45ACP ( as offered in the US Military trials). It was made by cutting two Lugers apart and rewelding them to accommodate the wider cartridge. I met him at a local gun show and he was gracious enough to show it to me (a very poor college student who obviously couldn't afford one). It was beautiful and you couldn't tell where the cuts and welds had been made. He was quite a gentleman and more than willing to spend time explaining his modifications to me.

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For those wondering. He never used matching number Lugers or P-38s for his conversions. He would always start with mismatched pistols so as not to affect their collector value
 

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Making a .45 Luger out of a normal Luger is very impressive. Making a beautiful wood stocked carbine out of a Luger or P38 is very cool. I understand that Mr. Martz had extreme talents in those areas, but I am still not comprehending what makes this chopped/ refinished P38 something special and the "flawless" work of a "craftsman", besides some basic engraving with the guys name. Just because you send your 1911 to Wilson Combat for an action job and some parts doesn't equate to a Wilson Combat fabricated gun. Maybe its like Shelby and sports cars, where just the name equates to $$$.
 
.455_Hunter said:
Just because you send your 1911 to Wilson Combat for an action job and some parts doesn't equate to a Wilson Combat fabricated gun
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John didn't accept customer's guns to "work on". He sourced Lugers and P-38s and rebuilt them from the frame up...like Wilson did before he got into manufacturing frames, slides, and other parts.

His clientele were collectors who wanted examples of what a Luger or P-38 could have been if it hadn't been for the wars
 
9mmepiphany said:
John didn't accept customer's guns to "work on". He sourced Lugers and P-38s and rebuilt them from the frame up...like Wilson did before he got into manufacturing frames, slides, and other parts
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You completely missed my point. What did he do to THIS pistol in question that demonstrates extreme craftsmanship?
 
IMG_0781.JPG I've got a P-38. Fun to shoot and the original holster is cool. But $7000.00 for a chopped one? It looks like whoever did it knew what he was doing.
 
.455_Hunter said:
You completely missed my point. What did he do to THIS pistol in question that demonstrates extreme craftsmanship?
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Ah, got it.

In general terms, he blueprinted them...like a blueprinted engine...starting with mismatched parts. All the Flats are flat, all parts mate seemlessly, all angles are correct, lockup is solid and function is flawless (if you used the prescribed ammo). I would liken it to a H&H Double.

I think when I price one, when I met him, he was asking under $2k for a Baby Luger...you could buy a Porsche 911 for less than $8k then
 
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Wow, I guess to some people handcrafted objects are no more valuable than those mass produced. To each his own, I guess. If I had the means to buy a Martz piece I certainly would.

What Martz tried to do is (re)produce 2 iconic pistols that most mere mortals can't afford. The .45 American Test Luger, of which only 2 ever existed, and only one still exists, and the Baby Luger, of which only 4 or 5 were built by DWM in the '20s, and only 2 are known to exist.

As you can imagine these guns are in the multi-hundred thousand price range and the .45 American Test Eagle sold for $1M in '89.

Martz took it upon himself to make replicas of those 2 pistols, and succeeded. Because he only made a few of each, they are worth a lot of money to collectors. Not as much as the real thing, but certainly a lot more than a run of the mill Luger
 
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9mmepiphany said:
Ah, got it.

In general terms, he blueprinted them...like a blueprinted engine...starting with mismatched parts. All the Flats are flat, all parts mate seemlessly, all angles are correct, lockup is solid and function is flawless (if you used the prescribed ammo). I would liken it to a H&H Double.

I think when I price one, when I met him, he was asking under $2k for a Baby Luger...you could buy a Porsche 911 for less than $8k then
Click to expand...

OK. Now we are starting to get somewhere. Previously in the the thread, it seemed like this P38 was special just because other guns Martz worked-on were special.

If this is truly a complete "re-manufacture" of a sloppy and mismatched wartime P38 into a precision and close tolerance custom weapon, then we have something. I think the owner in the auction should give a but more background information about the product instead of just saying its a Jim Martz gun and expecting everybody to automatically fawn over it.
 
Walkalong said:
The folks who might pay that don't need it.
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That's really the bottom line...it might also be that the current owner doesn't really want to sell it.

It reminds me of his story that when he first started selling his work he sold them through Abercrombie & Fitch...who'd only pay his $250 for them
 
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