mawkie
C&R Whisperer
-Quite frequently I find myself one bid short in live and internet auctions. The phrase in the auction world is "knocking at the back door". Back in 2106 I made a run at a very rare Turkish Contract FN 1922 only to come up short.
-Fast forward to 2019 and I see another come up in a live auction. It's a much nicer example and has a correct Turkish police holster and FN marked spare mag. This time history doesn't repeat itself and it hammers to me at a price under what the winning bidder paid back in 2016. Not for the first time am I happy I lost that first time around!
-What showed up at my doorstep today is one of 3000 FN 1922s built for the Turkish police during the run-up to WW2. But they never made it to Turkey. The shipment was intercepted by the Germans in the early days of the war and these pistols were issued to German forces with their police holsters. I even found photos of a Turkish Contract pistol captured in Austria by Maj. Dick Winters of Band of Brothers fame.
-Roughly 30 SNs of Turkish FN 1922s from this contract have been observed and recorded by Anthony Vanderlinden, the Browning/FN author and expert. So they're rare here in the US. Mine being only the second I've seen in the flesh. SNs for this contract were separate from FN SNs, starting at #1 and ending around #3000. The TC SUBAY mark stands for Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Subay or Officer of the Republic of Turkey. I'm not sure if they were issued with a spare magazine as my rig has. The holster is definitely original and in excellent condition. Sports no markings which is true of the 3-4 other holsters of this type that I've seen.
-Fast forward to 2019 and I see another come up in a live auction. It's a much nicer example and has a correct Turkish police holster and FN marked spare mag. This time history doesn't repeat itself and it hammers to me at a price under what the winning bidder paid back in 2016. Not for the first time am I happy I lost that first time around!
-What showed up at my doorstep today is one of 3000 FN 1922s built for the Turkish police during the run-up to WW2. But they never made it to Turkey. The shipment was intercepted by the Germans in the early days of the war and these pistols were issued to German forces with their police holsters. I even found photos of a Turkish Contract pistol captured in Austria by Maj. Dick Winters of Band of Brothers fame.
-Roughly 30 SNs of Turkish FN 1922s from this contract have been observed and recorded by Anthony Vanderlinden, the Browning/FN author and expert. So they're rare here in the US. Mine being only the second I've seen in the flesh. SNs for this contract were separate from FN SNs, starting at #1 and ending around #3000. The TC SUBAY mark stands for Turkiye Cumhuriyeti Subay or Officer of the Republic of Turkey. I'm not sure if they were issued with a spare magazine as my rig has. The holster is definitely original and in excellent condition. Sports no markings which is true of the 3-4 other holsters of this type that I've seen.
Attachments
-
IMGP8763.JPG56.4 KB · Views: 657
-
IMGP8764.JPG49.7 KB · Views: 670
-
IMGP8766.JPG81.6 KB · Views: 621
-
IMGP8767.JPG33.1 KB · Views: 628
-
IMGP8768.JPG84.6 KB · Views: 613
-
IMGP8769.JPG70.4 KB · Views: 616
-
IMGP8770.JPG65.3 KB · Views: 648
-
note card.jpg85.3 KB · Views: 627
-
winters m1922.jpg61.6 KB · Views: 633