P38 cyq Nov 1944 & Holsters

[lithgow]

Inspired by Mr Ben Evans Esquire, here's my Spreewerke made P38-November 1944 made approx. with breakaway soft flap 'bmz' 1944 holster-also a hard shell 'gcx' 1942 example-this is minus the belt loops but is otherwise in reasonable shape at what was an OK price for Nazi leather goods these days.

The Spreewerke examples were made in occupied Czechoslovakia by a less than enthusiastic workforce and the standard of manufacture declined sharply as the war neared the end (although this was true of German arms production in general) and the pistol displays the machining marks clearly. It makes an interesting contrast to my post war P38/P1 example. The magazine is marked WaA135.

[lithgow]

The holsters:

[Ben Evans]

Looks in very good condition, I am looking at a hard holster for mine at this moment, depends what Mrs Evans says lol

[guns ltd]

Get The hard shell holster Ben. You will be happier with it.

John

[Ben Evans]

Hard shell it is then

[Wagriff]

Personally, I think the Spreewerke cyq's get a bad rap. I've seen examples of most all of the makers, and Spreewerke doesn't stand out as any better or any worse than the rest. True, the very Late war versions were not well Finished, but so can be said for most Any of the late war weapons produced-the straw finishes, etc. I picked up a Spreewerke many years ago-in the early 70's from an old dealer that I knew. The accompanying story was that it was personally taken from the body of a deceased SS NCO the gunsmith's own brother had shot and killed in the war and brought back as a trophy. I don't know about the story, but there was no reason to not believe it-especially since he was trying much harder to sell me a Browning HP at the time, but I ended up picking up the P38 for little of nothing. It was in it's original soft leather holster and had a Serial Numbers matching magazine as well. something I'd never seen before.

At any rate, though, I do like the clamshell holsters better, as, over the years, the gun in the soft leather will begin poking it's way through the leather flap. I've seen many of these holster with period affixed leather patches Inside the flap that the soldat had put in himself to try to keep this from happening(usually with little success). But, as far as Spreewerke being a second class citizen in the P38 world? Not that I've ever seen!

[lithgow]

Generally the Spreewerke examples are less favoured by collectors but they are fully functional operational weapons, just not as 'pretty' as earlier Walther or Mauser types in the same sort of condition.
When you look at the amount of effort in time and materials that went into making a hard shell vs a soft flap holster, it's easy to see why the change occurred...