mawkie
C&R Whisperer
-Lots of interesting stuff hit the market in the last couple of months and I was a very busy boy chasing a couple of bucket list items and others. The number one item of interest was a Canadian Longbranch No7 .22 training rifle. Thought I had more than enough bid to grab a nice example only to watch someone else with deeper pockets stifle my ambitions. This was my sixth abortive attempt over 20 yrs to get a Canadian No7. And this was just the start of a run of bad luck where I was reserve bidder or not even in the hunt. Pretty demoralizing but you learn to push on.
-There was a small auction with a nice German pre-war Haenel training air rifle and a German issue Unique Kriegsmodell. So of course I got skunked on both. But I was also watching an interesting, well worn FN High Power that was languishing with little love @ $750 when the online only auction went into the last couple of hours. I had done my homework with the assistance of Tony Vanderlinden's FN Browning PIstols reference book and ID'd it as a pre-war Chinese Contract version. Not a lot of these were built and the SN on this one placed it in the roughly first 1500 built in the summer of 1938.
-So I put on my big boy pants and was lucky enough to grab it for what I consider to be a bargain. Finally broke the dry spell!
-The first production batch of the Chinese Contract had SNs from 6000 to approx 9500. This one falls neatly in the middle of that range. Would have been delivered with one of the FN flat stock holster sets that the Chinese really didn't take a liking to as they preferred the storage stocks like those for the Mauser C96 Broomhandle. Which explains why the later Canadian Inglis shipments to China had a Broomhandle type stock. This first batch also featured Type 1 tangent sights. Later in 1938 the Chinese placed an order for additional units and these have random SNs in the 9500-11,000 range. They differ in that they sport the Type 2 tangent sight and apparently were delivered without shoulder stocks. That was the extent of FN factory delivered High Powers to the Chinese Nationalists. After the war they stayed in China and by all accounts led a hard life, with repairs made using Inglis High Power parts.
-In the early 90s Kengs Firearms Speciality, KFS, imported the majority of those that survived. Most had been reworked and refinished over time. This example is rare in that it didn't get refinished and is all matching with an original FN magazine as well. Barrel has some frosting in the grooves but looks serviceable. A fair amount of holster wear and the grips are flattened (but original!). While not a Finn, Lithuanian or German issue tangent sight it's still a very interesting and uncommon example.
-There's a neat thread with another example much like mine, with a slighly higher SN, over on Jan Still's Luger Forum. Mr. Vanderlinden was one of the participants which makes it a very interesting read.
-There was a small auction with a nice German pre-war Haenel training air rifle and a German issue Unique Kriegsmodell. So of course I got skunked on both. But I was also watching an interesting, well worn FN High Power that was languishing with little love @ $750 when the online only auction went into the last couple of hours. I had done my homework with the assistance of Tony Vanderlinden's FN Browning PIstols reference book and ID'd it as a pre-war Chinese Contract version. Not a lot of these were built and the SN on this one placed it in the roughly first 1500 built in the summer of 1938.
-So I put on my big boy pants and was lucky enough to grab it for what I consider to be a bargain. Finally broke the dry spell!
-The first production batch of the Chinese Contract had SNs from 6000 to approx 9500. This one falls neatly in the middle of that range. Would have been delivered with one of the FN flat stock holster sets that the Chinese really didn't take a liking to as they preferred the storage stocks like those for the Mauser C96 Broomhandle. Which explains why the later Canadian Inglis shipments to China had a Broomhandle type stock. This first batch also featured Type 1 tangent sights. Later in 1938 the Chinese placed an order for additional units and these have random SNs in the 9500-11,000 range. They differ in that they sport the Type 2 tangent sight and apparently were delivered without shoulder stocks. That was the extent of FN factory delivered High Powers to the Chinese Nationalists. After the war they stayed in China and by all accounts led a hard life, with repairs made using Inglis High Power parts.
-In the early 90s Kengs Firearms Speciality, KFS, imported the majority of those that survived. Most had been reworked and refinished over time. This example is rare in that it didn't get refinished and is all matching with an original FN magazine as well. Barrel has some frosting in the grooves but looks serviceable. A fair amount of holster wear and the grips are flattened (but original!). While not a Finn, Lithuanian or German issue tangent sight it's still a very interesting and uncommon example.
-There's a neat thread with another example much like mine, with a slighly higher SN, over on Jan Still's Luger Forum. Mr. Vanderlinden was one of the participants which makes it a very interesting read.
