Flyers

Spanish language 4-page 2-sided advertising flyer

Featured herein is an extremely rare original 4-page, 2-sided Spanish language advertising folder/flyer. The flyer was found inserted in an equally rare Spanish language BERLIN 1902 PARABELLUM purple cover, gold lettering instruction manual in Germany. This flyer is advertising an experimental Model 1900 Luger carbine rig, being a very limited production Model 1900 7 inch “pencil” barrel 30 caliber BUG proofed commercial Luger. For more information on the flyer, click here to read the associated article.

Hunting Carbine "Parabellum" flyer

Pictured above is a recently discovered, extremely rare extant DWM German language 7-7/8” x 10-¼” four page flyer introducing the Jagdkarabiner „Parabellum“. For more information, click here.

Shooting & Fishing Journal May 1902

Pictured above is the May 1902 issue of the Shooting & Fishing Journal. Inside the magazine is an ad from Schoverling, Daly & Gales advertising for the Model 1900 Luger for $25. This ad precedes the Baker & Hamilton envelope ad by one month for the Model 1900 Luger. The June 1902 dated Baker & Hamilton envelope ad claims to be the Pacific Coast Agents of the Luger. By inference Schoverling, Daly & Gales could be the East Coast Agents although that honor is historically associated with Hans Tauscher. The interesting fact about both advertisements, the Schoverling, Daly & Gales ad and the Baker & Hamilton envelope ad, is the use of the same drawing or rendering of the 1900 Luger pictures as a preproduction Borchardt-Luger with plain bordered grips and “prototype" thin trigger. Apparently the Luger was so new that no photographs were available and the advertisers had to rely on an artists rendering of the Luger.

There is an ad for a Mauser pistol for $22.65 offered by Von Lengerke & Detmold of 318 Broadway, N.Y. Also, there are numerous advertisements for smokeless powder, an ad boasting the benefits of United Metallic Cartridge shells having won the Grand American Handicap at Targets in 1900, an ad attributing the win at the Asheville Tournament to Laflin & Rand Poder Co. smokeless powder and an ad for quick-reliable smokeless shotgun powder from Fr. Schroeder of 90 William St., N.Y.

Circa 1902 Baker & Hamilton envelope and June 1902 dated letter with B&H letterhead

Very historic information related to the Army Test Lugers purchased by the US Army. It is interesting to note that the Baker & Hamilton Company were familiar with the US Army contract purchase of 1000 US Test Eagle Lugers in 1901 and used that information to promote commercial sales of the 1900 American Eagle Luger as of June 1902. Baker and Hamilton were not aware of, or ignored the negative field reports received by the US Army, some prior to the 1902 dated Baker & Hamilton correspondence and the circa 1902 envelope. The subject Baker & Hamilton correspondence seems too early to be advertising the sale of US Army Test Eagle Lugers as most of the later excessesed Test Eagle Lugers were sold through Francis Bannerman Sons, Inc., circa 1907¹. Also the Baker & Hamilton claim printed on the envelope front of being the "Pacific Coast Agent for The LUGER Automatic Hammerless Pistol" is a bit dubious and would appear to precede Hans Tauscher who was the "Sole Agent" for DWM and the Luger from 1901 until 1917 and it was Hans Tauscher, as early as March 9, 1901 that is quoted to be the DWM factory representative². With that said the Baker & Hamilton envelope, to my knowledge, is the earliest surviving commercial advertisement for the Luger in the United States.

More common are C93 Borchardt and Luger commercial owners manuals found with Baker & Hamilton ink stampings on the covers or inside pages. In all my years of collecting I have not seen one of these envelopes before, especially being a combination of Baker & Hamilton stationary and advertising the Luger. I would say they are rare.

¹LUGER The Luger Book by J. Walter, Copyright 1986, p. 64, B6 Bannerman.
²U.S. Test Trials-1900 Luger by Michael Reese II, Copyright 1970, p. 26.

RECREATION magazine, February 1903

The February, 1903 issue of the RECREATION magazine, a circa 1900 American monthly magazine, has a rather unusual and enlightening short article on the Borchardt-Luger submitted by a reader on pages 133 and 134 of the Gun and Ammunition section. The article is well-written by a period gun enthusiast and is a testimonial to the early sensational appeal of the automatic Luger pistol in the U.S. Apparently DWM and the local representative, Hans Tauscher, took aggressive advantage of the 1901 sale of 1,000 Test Eagle Lugers to the United States Army in promoting the commercial sale of the Luger. So much so that after reading this article, the shooting public must have thought the Borchardt-Luger was the official U.S. Army sidearm. Interestingly, the author thought the Luger “extremely homely” using a Forest Gump like metaphor “…handsome is that handsome does.” Another unusual critique being the size of the grip. Both comments are contrary to current thinking.
© 24 March 2005

HANS TAUSCHER 1908 envelope and contents

In the 1908 Hans Tauscher envelope was a Hans Tauscher 3-page fold out flier and a 1-page flier advertising a Mauser Sporting rifle, both fliers featured herein. The envelope and enclosed material is 1908 or earlier as evidenced by the US Postmaster 1908-dated cancellation stamp.

In the lower left corner is a period hand written address in 3 lines: “606 West 49th St., A.F. Stoeger., New Agent”. This address is the first known for A.F. Stoeger. Per Walter¹ the firm of A.F. Stoeger & Co. initially traded from this address before moving to 224 East 42nd Street, New York City. A.F. Stoeger was officially appointed the ‘sole agent’ by Berlin-Karlsruher-Industrie-Werke, A.G. (BKIW) the successor firm to Deutsche Waffen - und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) in 1922 for the Luger.

It is curious therefore that the hand written address on the 1908 dated Hans Tauscher envelope refers to A.F. Stoeger as “New Agent” when Hans Tauscher was, in 1908, the sole agent for DWM from 1900 until 1916. One can infer that A.F. Stoeger, although not as sole agent, was merchandising the DWM Luger as early as 1908….

¹The Luger Book by John Walter, copyright 1986, p.250, S84 Stoeger

HANS TAUSCHER 3 page fold-out, 2 sided sales brochure

The condition of the document is very frail with the cover page partially detached and the right side partially frayed. It had been folded into thirds and according to Simpson was found inside a pre-World War I DWM factory, red covered instruction manual. The instruction manual is in the same condition as the sales brochure and had been stamped inside with a Hans Tauscher stamp. The instruction manual was obtained by Bob Simpson of Simpson Ltd with a holstered old model pistol. The condition of the holster and pistol were not in good condition and Simpson tried to purchase the paperwork separately but was unable to do so and had to buy the complete package. Simpson is of the opinion that because of the Hans Tauscher stamp found in the instruction manual that the sales brochure was placed there by Hans Tauscher himself, but that seems very unlikely. The sales brochure was probably placed in the instruction manual by the gun owner, and not necessarily the same holstered gun Simpson purchased. The sales brochure is very used and was folded, i.e., handled many times before it was finally placed in the instruction manual where it probably stayed until recent times.

The most interesting statement in the sales brochure is on page 2 and says:

This statement, other than an over zealous promotion by Hans Tauchser after receiving the June 10, 1907 U.S. Army request for 200 .45 caliber Lugers for testing, dates the sales brochure to about 1907. Unfortunately, DWM decided not to accept the order after learning the German Army had accepted the 9mm Luger and Tauscher had to decline the U.S. Army order on April 16 1908. It was the huge potential of the German Army order for DWM, not WWI that prevented the production of the .45 Luger.

The 1907 dating of the sales brochure is also supported by a John P. Pearson article titled Luger Literature featured in the 4th edition of GUN COLLECTOR'S DIGEST, dated MCMLXXXV (1985). This article shows a Hans Tauscher "advertising flier" showing a new model (M1906) Luger along with an IDEAL holster/stock rig. The Pearson caption says "Luger literature produced by the sole U.S. Luger importer prior to WWI, Hans Tauchser. A sales flier and two instruction manuals all pre-1910 are displayed."

According to the above information it seems that the Hans Tauscher sales brochure was modified sometime between 1907 and 1910 to replace the drawings of the old model pistol with the new model pistol.

1921 National Sportsman magazine

Featured herein is a series of Luger ads found in the December 1921 issue of the NATIONAL SPORTSMAN. The first ad on p 343 is advertising an “Imported German Luger Automatic” for $35 through Snyder’s Mail Order House, 508 NS South Street, Philadelphia, Pa. The C96 MAUSER & Luger ad is interesting as it is being offered by P. VON FRANTZIUS, Dept.6, 828 George St., Chicago, Ill. This ad is 1921 yet the first P. VON FRANTZIUS catalog with a 608 Diversity Parkway, Chicago, Ill. address didn’t appear until 1923, similar to and after the 1923 Luger Sales Catalog, so there is the possibility that there are earlier catalogs. There is no information on the Pacific Sales, Ltd firm of Moscow, Idaho. Then there are two other ads, one for a Luger for $27 from E. Wanger and Co. of 500 Market St. Phila. The other ad features a Luger for sale at $28.75 from Import Trading Co. of 258 Broadway, Dept. 23, N.Y.