I would like to dedicate this post to my brother-in-law,Gar-Bear, who is living out his last days in California. Your family misses you and still prays for your complete healing. Your wisdom and advice to me have always been straight and true and I will treasure our conversations. Thanks.
It is because of my brother-in-law, that the pistol this article is in my care. For those of you that are just getting started in the wonderful world of guns and gun collecting, there will be times when firearms will come into your collection that you may not want or care about. Relatives and friends will give you tips to collections or perhaps come to you for advice on how to get rid of them. Most people would just turn around and sell them or trade them off for something else, like “trade bait” to carry around at a show. But sometimes, after careful research, a piece can find a place into your collection and perk your curiosity. This pistol is just that piece.
The night before my brother-in-law left for his final trip to California, he took me aside and presented me with his modest collection for me to store them. So I started looking all the pieces over and this brown leather holster really caught my eye.
I recognized the shape because after a while, you learn what a vintage WW2 German holster looks like and my heart skipped a beat. Gently, I opened up the flap and I see this very unusually shaped pistol. I have seen them before, but never really took the time to look one over close up and in person. It was a Dreyse Model 1907.
I asked how he had come by this pistol and he told me that it was given to him by his father who took it as a war trophy off a dead German officer. Somehow, he got it back home after the war, most certainly in the bottom of a duffel bag, or tucked into his jacket. So now this piece has some providence to it. For a collector, that is a good start for a quality collector item. I began to look at evidence of this story. The holster is a typical German WW2 issued holster, 1938 dated and a faint waffenamt stamp. So that is good evidence, and a quality holster can only help increase the total value.
So then I pulled the magazine out of the holster and began to look it over. It is in rough shape, but functional. I look it over and cannot find any waffenamt stamp at all on it. As most collectors know, WW2 German war items are literally plastered everywhere with waffenamt stamps. They were fanatical to obsession with it, and this mag had nothing on it. So, possibly this mag is post war or maybe a commercial one. At least there is a mag.
Now onto the pistol… The first thing I noticed was the plate with the identification info on it. How can you not miss it, it takes up most of the pistol.
From research I have done, this particular pistol is a Dreyse Model 1907 in 7.65mm Browning or as most of us know .32 ACP caliber. It was manufactured by RheinischeMetallwaaren- & Maschinenfabrik plant in SÖMMERDA. Later on, this plantwould become known as Rheinmetall, a very famous manufacturer that is still in business today. From the serial number, this pistol is known as a first variant, and has an early disconnector and a lanyard ring, which is consistent with other models with similar serial numbers. This particular pistol also has proof marks, something done to firearms before WW1. After researching the proofmarks more, I learned that this pistol was inspected at the town of Suhl before it went onto its final destination. Finding the proof marks only helps verify that this pistol was in service before the war started, most likely sometime before 1912 when they began using a N instead of the U.
After being inspected, this pistol went onto the location where it would spend a considerable amount of its life at, Berlin. I know this because of the markings that are crossed out under the ID plate. It reads: KPPBNo 2569 which stands for Konigliches Polizei Prasidum Berlin or translated as Royal Police Headquarters Berlin. This particular stamping was only used during the Imperial age of the Kaiser, which only further backs up a pre-WW1 dating. So this pistol was carried by a police officer on a beat, ok that is interesting.
The other marking on the front grip strap also gives clues to the history of this pistol. It reads: KB 738 which stands for Kriminalpolizei Berlin or translated as Criminal Police Berlin. After Germany lost the war and somewhere around 1919-1920, all police firearms were inventoried, restamped and reissued. This was mostly due to reorganization of the police force by the new Weimar government and restrictions placed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. So, now this pistol became part of the detective branch of the police force.
More than likely, it was carried in a coat pocket or under a coat daily in its duties. As the Weimar Republic fell apart and a new government known as the National Socialists (Nazi) took control of the country, the detective branch of police forces became the nucleus of a new organization called the Gestapo Gheime Staatspolizei or Secret StatePolice. So this pistol was carried by a Gestapo officer. This really adds to the mystique of this pistol.
So this explains a question that had been bothering me since I began looking it over… If it was taken off a German officer, why wasn’t it waffenamt stamped? The answer to that is it never entered the war machine side/ordinance group and therefore was not stamped. It was a police issued weapon. And more than likely, the officer that was carrying it when my brother-in-law’s father took possession of it was Gestapo.
We have all heard the statement “If only this pistol could talk…” but in this case, I really wish it could. Here we have a 100+ year old firearm that saw some of the best and worst of 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century history. Imagine what this pistol has seen, not just being a police pistol, but even more than that. This pistol may have seen or been a part of such events as:
Sitting in a Café reading a newspaper about an obscure Austrian duke being shot.
Watching the cream of Germany’s manhood march off to war for Der Vatterland.
Hearing about a grand victory in the forest of Tannenburg.
Guarding the Kaiser as he exited his carriage to enter the Reichstag.
Watching people struggle to feed themselves after a potato famine in 1916 and the further food rationing as the war progressed.
The end of WW1 and the collapse of an empire.
Revolts of the High Seas Fleet and the bloody revolts of 1918-1919.
The formation of a new Weimar republic.
The electrification of the railway system in the city in1922
The terrible economic collapse of the 1929 and hyperinflation
The rise of a new political leader called Adolf Hitler and his SA brown shirts.
The burning of the Reichstag.
The 1936 Olympic Games
Kristallnach
And the roundup of Jews for shipment to concentration camps.
I am sure this pistol was a comfort to the officer that carried it during those trying times, even though the caliber of this firearm is not considered very powerful. Remember, many people did not have a means to defend themselves other than a club or knife. On a dark, lonely street, this was a considerable weapon for its time.
Not too bad for an unusual little pistol.
Thank you for reading this and bearing with this story.
It is because of my brother-in-law, that the pistol this article is in my care. For those of you that are just getting started in the wonderful world of guns and gun collecting, there will be times when firearms will come into your collection that you may not want or care about. Relatives and friends will give you tips to collections or perhaps come to you for advice on how to get rid of them. Most people would just turn around and sell them or trade them off for something else, like “trade bait” to carry around at a show. But sometimes, after careful research, a piece can find a place into your collection and perk your curiosity. This pistol is just that piece.
The night before my brother-in-law left for his final trip to California, he took me aside and presented me with his modest collection for me to store them. So I started looking all the pieces over and this brown leather holster really caught my eye.
I recognized the shape because after a while, you learn what a vintage WW2 German holster looks like and my heart skipped a beat. Gently, I opened up the flap and I see this very unusually shaped pistol. I have seen them before, but never really took the time to look one over close up and in person. It was a Dreyse Model 1907.
I asked how he had come by this pistol and he told me that it was given to him by his father who took it as a war trophy off a dead German officer. Somehow, he got it back home after the war, most certainly in the bottom of a duffel bag, or tucked into his jacket. So now this piece has some providence to it. For a collector, that is a good start for a quality collector item. I began to look at evidence of this story. The holster is a typical German WW2 issued holster, 1938 dated and a faint waffenamt stamp. So that is good evidence, and a quality holster can only help increase the total value.
So then I pulled the magazine out of the holster and began to look it over. It is in rough shape, but functional. I look it over and cannot find any waffenamt stamp at all on it. As most collectors know, WW2 German war items are literally plastered everywhere with waffenamt stamps. They were fanatical to obsession with it, and this mag had nothing on it. So, possibly this mag is post war or maybe a commercial one. At least there is a mag.
Now onto the pistol… The first thing I noticed was the plate with the identification info on it. How can you not miss it, it takes up most of the pistol.
From research I have done, this particular pistol is a Dreyse Model 1907 in 7.65mm Browning or as most of us know .32 ACP caliber. It was manufactured by RheinischeMetallwaaren- & Maschinenfabrik plant in SÖMMERDA. Later on, this plantwould become known as Rheinmetall, a very famous manufacturer that is still in business today. From the serial number, this pistol is known as a first variant, and has an early disconnector and a lanyard ring, which is consistent with other models with similar serial numbers. This particular pistol also has proof marks, something done to firearms before WW1. After researching the proofmarks more, I learned that this pistol was inspected at the town of Suhl before it went onto its final destination. Finding the proof marks only helps verify that this pistol was in service before the war started, most likely sometime before 1912 when they began using a N instead of the U.
After being inspected, this pistol went onto the location where it would spend a considerable amount of its life at, Berlin. I know this because of the markings that are crossed out under the ID plate. It reads: KPPBNo 2569 which stands for Konigliches Polizei Prasidum Berlin or translated as Royal Police Headquarters Berlin. This particular stamping was only used during the Imperial age of the Kaiser, which only further backs up a pre-WW1 dating. So this pistol was carried by a police officer on a beat, ok that is interesting.
So this explains a question that had been bothering me since I began looking it over… If it was taken off a German officer, why wasn’t it waffenamt stamped? The answer to that is it never entered the war machine side/ordinance group and therefore was not stamped. It was a police issued weapon. And more than likely, the officer that was carrying it when my brother-in-law’s father took possession of it was Gestapo.
We have all heard the statement “If only this pistol could talk…” but in this case, I really wish it could. Here we have a 100+ year old firearm that saw some of the best and worst of 20[SUP]th[/SUP] century history. Imagine what this pistol has seen, not just being a police pistol, but even more than that. This pistol may have seen or been a part of such events as:
Sitting in a Café reading a newspaper about an obscure Austrian duke being shot.
Watching the cream of Germany’s manhood march off to war for Der Vatterland.
Hearing about a grand victory in the forest of Tannenburg.
Guarding the Kaiser as he exited his carriage to enter the Reichstag.
Watching people struggle to feed themselves after a potato famine in 1916 and the further food rationing as the war progressed.
The end of WW1 and the collapse of an empire.
Revolts of the High Seas Fleet and the bloody revolts of 1918-1919.
The formation of a new Weimar republic.
The electrification of the railway system in the city in1922
The terrible economic collapse of the 1929 and hyperinflation
The rise of a new political leader called Adolf Hitler and his SA brown shirts.
The burning of the Reichstag.
The 1936 Olympic Games
Kristallnach
And the roundup of Jews for shipment to concentration camps.
I am sure this pistol was a comfort to the officer that carried it during those trying times, even though the caliber of this firearm is not considered very powerful. Remember, many people did not have a means to defend themselves other than a club or knife. On a dark, lonely street, this was a considerable weapon for its time.
Not too bad for an unusual little pistol.
Thank you for reading this and bearing with this story.
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