A rare Hi Power.
I have a fairly good selection of WWII Hi Powers. While certainly not the prettiest the one that is the most unique in my collection is a built by the Germans but sold straight out of the plant after the liberation to a GI ( private John A Gendron). This is one of the liberation Hi Powers and has no serial number as they didn't mark them when the plant was first liberated (These are described in Anthony Vanderlindens book on Hi Powers, but there is no telling how many exist). As you can see the gun has the roughest finish you will see on any Hi Power from that time. It has both German and Belgium proofs and was done during the month of September 1944 as they start serial numbering them in October. These were assembled out of parts the Germans left behind that were not assembled as yet. You will find the MR stamp on the trigger guard and on the barrel, it was an inspection mark used by the Germans. You will also find a very lightly stamped WaA140 on the barrel. To show the similarity and differences I used a late production 1944 built in about July of that year under German occupation.
In the first photo you can see compared to a late production how rough the finish is and the bakelight brown grips.
In the second set that is a close up notice the MR stamp near the front of the trigger guard on both. This is important as they used the MR stamp for years but only in the last months did they stamp the frames on the right side. Before that it was on the left side.
In the third set of photos you will see the inspectors broke out their proofs as soon as the Germans pulled out. However you can see how crude the finish was as they had almost no machinery left.
The fourth image just pans back on the left side, again note the same grips and similar build quality.
In the fifth photos you will notice a light imprint of the WaA140 on the barrel out of the gun with no serial number. On the other barrel you notice it is double stamped with the WaA140 as I think the barrels went through multiple inspections.
In the last photos note that both barrel contain the MR proof stamp in the same location.
.
! I think I will call a friend with a Browning HP for sale! ( probably not as rare as this) but I love the look of these. I wanted to get a Luger or a p38 first, but I'm thinking about it now..
by lithgow
Bookmarks