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Nice Luger.
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Very nice.
The wife and I used to attend auctions regularly. Farm and estate. Normally it was pretty much both. Rural Wisconsin. No Internet bidding. Whoever showed up, was going to bid; nobody else. No absentee, no Internet. 90% of the attendees went for entertainment - they'd not bid on anything. Just a stream of "I remember when those were $3." At one auction, I took a lot consisting of 4 bags. "Sleeping bags." As I recall, my bid was about $15. One was a Coleman brown thing. Another was a complete M-1942. A complete M-1945. A complete, with poles, WW2 mountain tent. Nice lot.
Another auction. Complete M-1912 pistol cleaning kit. $5.
Another auction. Unused WW2 jungle hammock. $15.
We loved the auctions. The biggest score? Yet another farm auction. Big auction, they were running 3 rings. Guns always went at noon - standard in the area. 8 nothing special guns. Close to home so we went. Didn't take any of the guns. Perhaps 12 guys there bidding or spectating. As soon as the guns were sold, the auctioneer said: "we might as well sell the clock now." What? You're going to sell a grandfather clock to the gun guys? Why not lots with hair care products and makeup kits? Gun guys do not buy clocks. The clock was a Howard Miller. Cherry. Very fancy. Pristine. The pendulum was still in the box. I took it for $400. When we arrived home, I googled it. It was a current product. Retail? Well over $4,000. You don't get deals like that every day.
Yet another estate auction in the middle of nowhere. Listed was a trapdoor and a Ruger. No pictures. Might as well go see. When I arrived, I looked at the trapdoor. Perfect. That gun came with a story. I'll skip it for now. There was an old guy guarding the guns. Making sure kids didn't play with them. Grumpy old man.
I started wandering the rows of stuff. It was all outside. Mainly in milk crates. In one were flight training manuals. Some aircraft manuals. In another were some other paper items. I poked at those. On was a hard cover folder for school work. Lots of writing all over it. Some quite interesting.
I went back to the gun table. I asked the grumpy old man if he knew the gentleman that had passed on. "Yes, he was my brother." Ok, that makes sense. "So he was the pilot and you were the Para-marine then?" He looked a little confused at how I could know that. I told him his sister's school folder was in one of the milk crates and it was a wealth of information. His brother was clearly an Avenger pilot, as the training manuals made obvious. Yes, he was the Para-marine.
"What's the story with the Luger?" The Para-marine had been shot on Bougainville. Lost his pistol as part of that mess. Back in the States for rehab, he bumped into a school buddy. The buddy was back from Europe. North Africa. Some place with Germans. The buddy wouldn't be going back so he gave he Luger he captured to the Para-marine, as he would be going back. The Para-marine gave it to his brother. The Para-marine did end up going back to the PTO, where he was shot again.
In any event, that was the story of the Luger. "Ruger" in the list. Strangely, the Luger collectors didn't attend that auction. "Buy the gun, not the story." Sometimes you buy both.
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You also buy the lot with the sister's school books.