mawkie
C&R Whisperer
-Back in Feb. I snagged a sweet Spreewerk P38 to go with what I thought was a correct '44 dated soft shell holster I had found much earlier. Well, consensus is that the holster started life as a post war East German that was "enhanced" aka faked. So I started my OCD search for a proper soft shell.
-Took me until yesterday to find one. Starting this task I wasn't aware of the vast number of manufacturers and codes along with more than a fair number of fakes, some of which are very convincing. I decided the goal was to find a good example with a $200 budget. Was shocked at the number of NOS examples out there which initially raise all kinds of alarms in my mind when looking at something so new but 80 years old. So decided to take a pass on the NOS stuff and stick with a worn but solid example
-Finally hit paydirt when someone posted a rare soft shell holster with what's known as the "9 in Oak Leaf" holster. The seller had it listed as made by Albrectht Kind or AKAH which was the accepted convention for decades. But back in 2007 some collectors did an amazing job of correctly ID'ing the correct manufacturer in this wonderful thread on Jan Still's Gun Boards forum. It was built by Christof Neuner in Austria and sports the unique number "9" on oak leaf with rawhide symbol background.
-Neuner softwhell holsters seem to be tougher to find vs their hardshell examples. I've only run across a handful in web searches. The cost of this one was just under my $200 budget so mission accomplished!
-Took me until yesterday to find one. Starting this task I wasn't aware of the vast number of manufacturers and codes along with more than a fair number of fakes, some of which are very convincing. I decided the goal was to find a good example with a $200 budget. Was shocked at the number of NOS examples out there which initially raise all kinds of alarms in my mind when looking at something so new but 80 years old. So decided to take a pass on the NOS stuff and stick with a worn but solid example
-Finally hit paydirt when someone posted a rare soft shell holster with what's known as the "9 in Oak Leaf" holster. The seller had it listed as made by Albrectht Kind or AKAH which was the accepted convention for decades. But back in 2007 some collectors did an amazing job of correctly ID'ing the correct manufacturer in this wonderful thread on Jan Still's Gun Boards forum. It was built by Christof Neuner in Austria and sports the unique number "9" on oak leaf with rawhide symbol background.
-Neuner softwhell holsters seem to be tougher to find vs their hardshell examples. I've only run across a handful in web searches. The cost of this one was just under my $200 budget so mission accomplished!
