The Elusive and Mysterious 9mm Export Broomhandle Everyone is familiar with the “Red 9” 9mm Luger Broomhandle, but very few people know about its earlier cousin, the 9mm Export Broomhandle. The Mauser C/96 “Broomhandle” Pistol was manufactured from 1896 until approximately 1936. During those years the pistols remained basically the same, going through some internal and external changes, but nothing that changed the basic premise of how the gun worked. C/96 pistols were primarily chambered for the 7.63mm Mauser cartridge, although a notable run were made for the German Military in 9mm Luger during WWI. Beginning in the years prior to WWI, Mauser realized that a more powerful cartridge might be of interest to some of its foreign customers, so they designed a 9×25 cartridge, called the 9mm Mauser Export. This is a straight walled 9mm shell, with a 25mm long casing. In contrast, the 9mm Luger is a 9mm … Read More
Remington Double Derringer .41 Short Revolver
NOTE: This revolver is currently for sale in our store and on our website. No representation of the “Old West Saloon” is complete without a vest clad gambler sitting at a card table, armed with his Remington Derringer. These iconic guns were made, relatively unchanged, from 1866 until 1935. They shoot a low powered rimfire 41 Short cartridge, with an estimated muzzle velocity of 425 feet per second. We recently acquired the gun pictured here on one of our buying trips through the Western US. Coming out of Reno, NV, it came from the family of a pawn shop owner who kept under the counter as the store defense gun from the 1920’s to the 1950’s. After that, it was dropped in a drawer and only saw the light of day recently. When we purchased it, it even had what appears to be the original ammunition chambered! Operation is single … Read More
4 Digit Wartime Commercial Mauser C/96 Broomhandle Pistol
Re-examining the “Scandinavian Contract” Mauser C/96 Broomhandle We get a lot of WWI and WWII c/96 “Broomhandle” pistols here at Parker’s gun store. In this post, we will be looking at an example of an unexplained contract block of C/96 Pistols made in the WWI era. These guns are sometimes called “Scandinavian Contract” guns, but no documentation has ever been produced linking them to a Scandinavian country. In all respects, these pistols are regular Wartime Commercial WWI guns. They have standard Mauser markings on the right receiver, and standard Mauser markings on the top of the chamber. The hammer is marked with “NS,” for Neue Sicherung (New Safety) indicating production between approximately 1914, and the advent of the 1930 Commercial model. Their finish is definitely below Mauser’s peacetime standards, with many machining marks and a general look of rushed production. The serial numbers of observed guns beseems to fall mostly … Read More
A Look at Import Marks and Their Impact on the Czechoslovakian CZ52 Pistol
Import Marks and Their Impact on Gun Values Here at Pony Express Firearms, we see a lot of import marked guns. Today we’ll look at the Czech CZ52 pistol, and the difference a seemingly innocuous feature like an import mark can make on value. The CZ52 is a Czechoslovakian designed pistol, standardized for military use in 1952. Originally intended to fire the 9×19 Luger round, political pressure from the Soviet Union forced the adoption of this pistol in the standard Warsaw Pact 7.62x25mm caliber. The Czech military used the CZ52 for decades, only being replaced in the early 1980’s by the vz82 in 9x18mm Makarov caliber. In all, approximately 200,000 CZ52 pistols were produced. These guns are very well made and use a unique roller locking system to lock the barrel and slide together. This same locking system is also found on the German MG42 machine gun. As such, they … Read More
Mauser C/96 Red Nine 1920 Rework Norweigan Military Issue
Identifying Obscure Markings on Mauser C/96 Broomhandle Pistols, Part 2 In a previous post, we examined a Red 9 1920 rework C/96. In this post, we will examine and attempt to decipher the markings on another Red 9 rework, albeit with a much more convoluted trail. This pistol started life as part of the 150,000 gun contract of 9mm C/96’s known as “Red Nines” in WWI. It has the standard Mauser chamber and left side markings, and is standard in all basic respects. In the immediate post WWI era, as part of the Treaty of Versailles, many military C/96 pistols had their barrels cut to 4″ to comply with the terms of the Treaty. This gun had its barrel cut, the rear tangent sight removed and replaced with a brazed-on notch sight, and at some point the Red 9 grips were replaced with a set of unmarked standard wood grips. … Read More
Mauser C/96 Red Nine 1920 Reworked Pistol
Identifying Obscure Markings on Mauser C/96 Broomhandle Pistols, Part 1 One of the most fascinating aspects of dealing and collecting in antique firearms like we do daily here at Pony Express Firearms is tracing the history of a particular gun. It’s one thing to be able to generally identify the make and model of a pistol, it’s another to know exactly where it saw service, what units it served with, and sometimes to even trace a gun’s whole service history. That’s why being able to identify obscure unit and arsenal markings is a worthwhile endeavor. In the next two posts we’ll be examining two Mauser C/96 pistols, both of which vividly illustrate how markings trace a gun’s history and affect value. This first gun started out life as a standard C/96 pistol, made in a contract of 150,000 guns for the Imperial German Military in WWI. These guns were numbered in … Read More
American Revolutionary War Era Blunderbuss by Theophilus Richards
A lot of time, customers who contemplate selling firearms to us here at Parker’s gun store tell us what they have, and then follow it up with “Is that too old for you guys to be interested in buying?” Invariably our answer is that if it shoots a projectile, we’re interested. From matchlock to machine gun, cannon to Colt, your gun is neither too new, nor too old for us to be interested in. Recently, we bought a large collection of antique firearms from an East Coast estate. Amongst them was this absolutely spectacular flintlock blunderbuss made in Birmingham, UK, by gunmaker Theophilus Richards anywhere between the latter part of the 18th century and the early 19th century (i.e. the American Revolutionary War period – roughly the 1770s to 1800 AD). Richards was considered one of the finest gunsmiths of his day, and was father of William Westley Richards, who … Read More