1912 Casimir Weber catalog | ||
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The Casimir Weber company was one of Europe’s leading pre-war firearm dealers. The company was located in Zurich, Switzerland. The Casimir Weber catalog shown above is printed in French. There is an earlier 1907-1908 Casimir Weber catalogue1 with a page that describes the 1906 “New Model" 30 cal Luger but shows an old model Luger. This could be attributed to the fact that no pictures were available due to the newness of the new model. The 1907-1908 catalogue also features an old model Luger with a 7 inch, 30 caliber barrel and a 1st issue flat Thumb Safety with no descriptive text. Four years later in the 1912 catalogue the identical 7 inch, 30 cal old model Luger is shown but this time with descriptive text. It is hard to determine if these 7 inch barreled Lugers were manufactured with the barrels shown or were after market replacements. Based on the 1st issue thumb safety, it would appear that the guns were manufactured with the 7 inch barrels. Similar 7 inch barrel Lugers have been located in South America in the 10000-10100 commercial serial number range. Apparently the 7 inch barrel Lugers were not a commercial success, judging by the limited production and having been advertised for at least a dozen years. Amazingly, a prototype C93 Loewe Borchardt pistol is also advertised in the 1912 Casimir Weber catalog. It is a very early short barrel version which until recent times was thought to only have existed as a patent drawing example. Since the descriptive text for the C93 Borchardt advertises a single, used pistol, it could be the one that was known to be manufactured, almost 20 years prior to 1912. This could also be the same pistol as the recently published prototype C93 Loewe Borchardt pistol, serial number 8.2 Regarding the Luger it is difficult to determine, based on the subject 1912 catalogue what was the then current market for the Luger. | ||
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