1973 Interarms ad, brings back memories?

[Vlim]

Just got this one in today. It appeared in the magazines in 1973, by that time the modified P08-style had already been introduced, although the pre-1973 version is shown here.

The retail price: $219 USD.

[Ron Smith]

Oh Great!! Now I do feel old....

Thanks a bunch Gerben!!

"A Legend You Can Hold In Your Hand"

That I can identify with

[Aaron]

In the early seventies these Interarms PO8s were seen everywhere. Almost every gun show vendor had one for sale, and the average price was about $300. It took quite a few years before these began to be of interest and the prices slowly crept higher. However, taking inflation into account, I think at $800 to $1000 they are still selling at the same old prices.

[Sieger]

Hi All:

I was there in 1973!!!

I only lived about 40 minutes away, on the other side of Washington,D.C. in the Maryland suburbs.

I use to love hanging around the Interarms show room at Hunter's Haven, at Zero Prince Street in Alexandria, Va.

My Dad bought me my first Mauser rifle there in late 1967. It was a 1934 "Standard Model" '98 with a totally shot out and rotted out barrel, later transformed into a blistering .338 Winchester Magnum for me by him.

Back to Lugers...there were some adds for Surplus German Army Lugers as late as 1969 or so by Interarms. By then, though, importing surplus goodies had been outlawed by our loving federal Government (if I have the year right).

Oh well, collecting today is much easier and I can actually afford it!!

Ha!!!

Sieger

[Sieger]

Hi Again:

As to the Interarms Parabellum Pistols of the late 60s and early 70s, my Dad took the pistol in his hand, felt the strangeness of the grip safety, and pronounced the design an utter failure!!!

It seemed the new design ( a bastardized 1929 Swiss, selling for $265.00 at Woolco) didn't recreate the original natural feeling he was so accustomed to with the original P-08s.

Thirty-seven years later, I still agree with his original observation regarding the Parabellums of that period, they just don't feel like a "Luger" in your hand nor when you shoot one of them.

Your comments?

Sieger

[mauro]

Nice find Gerben,
For several reasons, the Mauser Paabellum was far to be a commercial success. Concerning the price, the one foreseen in the beginning of the contractual phase between Mauser and Interarms was really lower than the actual one. The price was, for sure, increased because of the big mistakes made by the Mauser enginneers in the evaluation of the effort necessary to rebuild from scratch the Parabellum pistole.

Have fun.
Mauro

[Sieger]

Originally posted by mauro
Nice find Gerben,
For several reasons, the Mauser Paabellum was far to be a commercial success. Concerning the price, the one foreseen in the beginning of the contractual phase between Mauser and Interarms was really lower than the actual one. The price was, for sure, increased because of the big mistakes made by the Mauser enginneers in the evaluation of the effort necessary to rebuild from scratch the Parabellum pistole.

Have fun.
Mauro

Hi:

You know, I've read and heard how the German Engineers fouled the Parabellum project up (or at least were officially blamed for the foul-up) , both from an economic and an engineering point of view. Particularly of interest is the fact that they bought the Swiss tooling for the 1929 model, then decided that it was worm out and couldn't be used!

Frankly, I don't believe this fairy tale!!!

German Engineers fouling such an easy thing up as simply manufacturing a pistol in existence since 1899, a pistol that their firm, and its predecessors, had manufactured for almost 50 years? Scheisse!!!

Someone in upper management must have dropped their pants on this whole deal with Interarms and then blamed the Engineers!!

Your thoughts?

Sieger

[Vlim]

Hi,

The problem was not that the Swiss tooling was worn, but rather that the Swiss used a different standardization method on their production machinery. The Swiss jigs couldn't be used on German machines, so the Mauser engineers had to remanufacture them to fit their machinery.

The Mauser guys didn't do that bad actually. They decided, rightfully, not to use the old style production methods of the pre-1945 era, as they were grossly expensive and complex.

Instead, they translated the design to the manufacturing standards of the 1970s. There is no real problem with the functionality of the pistol, nor the effectiveness of the individual parts.

Mauser and Interarms did goof up one of the most important aspects:
-The USA buying crowd was used to and loved the P08 design, not the Swiss 06/29 pattern.
-And again, pricing. When you can buy a perfectly good 35$ P08, why on earth would you pay $200 - $300 for a new gun, which looks nothing like the original one.
-The grips: They tried to fix the old 'loose grips' problem by introducing small brass pins into them. In order to have enough mass for the pins to stick, they thickened the edges of the grips, introducing a lousy feel to them.

[Sieger]

Hi:

"The problem was not that the Swiss tooling was worn, but rather that the Swiss used a different standardization method on their production machinery. The Swiss jigs couldn't be used on German machines, so the Mauser engineers had to remanufacture them to fit their machinery."


Here again, is seems a bit unbelievable that major trading partners like the Germans and Swiss were not familiar with each others standardization methods! Since they are both on the metric system, I find this equally hard to believe. Also, didn't the Germans, supposedly, buy the Swiss production machinery and not just the jigs? My question is simple...why did they buy anything from the Swiss at all?


"Mauser and Interarms did goof up one of the most important aspects:
-The USA buying crowd was used to and loved the P08 design, not the
Swiss 06/29 pattern."


This was a major, unrecoverable f-ck-up!!


"-And again, pricing. When you can buy a perfectly good 35$ P08, why on earth would you pay $200 - $300 for a new gun, which looks nothing like the original one."


Agreed here. A new Parabellum offered nothing to the equation other than the fact that it was "NEW".


"-The grips: They tried to fix the old 'loose grips' problem by introducing small brass pins into them. In order to have enough mass for the pins to stick, they thickened the edges of the grips, introducing a lousy feel to them."


A child could have designed a better solution for the loose grip problem than the one they came up with, as it completely destroys the feeling of the Luger in your hand.

Sieger

[Vlim]

Hi,

I agree that the 'jig' problem needs some further investigation. I'm still waiting for some photographic documentation of the stuff the Swiss sent to Mauser. As far as I'm aware, Mauser just got the jigs, not complete machines, as Parabellum production, like most guns, was mainly done on relatively straightforward machinery.

Mauser would have worked according to the german DIN norm, of which the foundations were laid by it's original parent company, Ludwig Loewe & Cie. in the early 1900s. The Swiss used their own SNV norm.

The choice to go with the Swiss design was not that strange, considering the high production costs of a Parabellum. Mauser sought to drastically cut the number of machining steps from the over 750 steps needed originally. The Swiss already had optimized production with their 06/29 design, after all, so that would make a good starting point.

[mauro]

Hello Friends,
Let me provide some more evidences to corroborate my previous statement.

Around one and half years ago I was so lucky to buy several internal Mauser documents related to the â??newâ?� Mauser Parabellum, among them also pictures of the Mauser tooling, Jigs and some Blue prints dated 1969.
In this set of documents I bought, one is the original draft copy of the â??Parabellum Historyâ?� written by Jan Stevenson in cooperation with Mauser. Jan Stevenson spent a couple of months in Mauser, writing this booklet in close collaboration with Mauser engineers in German Language. When finished, this draft copy in German language was double-checked by the Mauser engineers and management and then translated into English.
My original draft-copy still has the correction made by Mauser in some chapters. In any case, the Mauser engineers and Mr. Stevenson spent several pages to describe the problems with the Bern tools and the related decision to stop trying using the Bern tools and start the production of the tools from scratch.
Hereafter only a few statements that can help to understand the technical issue s with the Bern tooling.

â??Mauserâ??s engineering and production facilities are set up in accordance with German Industry Standards (DIN). For Mauser engineers, the Swiss blue prints seemed all backwards. Where the Swiss read a plus-only tolerance the Germans read a minus â??only and so forth. The blue prints would have head to be redone for this reason aloneâ?�.

I have in my collection some blue prints dated 1969 and they are visible in my web site as well.

Another interesting statement:

â??A more serious problem was the jigs worksheet, etc. were geared to the 1930â??s production methods â?¦ For instance profilers, reading off a control die, were not used in Switzerland nor in Germany either until the P38 went into production at Mauser during the WWII. With the P08 the work always moved around a static tool, rather than the toolâ??s moving around the work.â?� Then there is a detailed description about why the jigs and the tooling do not work anymore with the new Mauser standards.

This was a real disaster and it introduces a big delay in the Mauser schedule. It is so funny the way Mauser solved the problem related to the presentation of the news Parabellum to the 1969 NSGA and NRA. They simply reused the original 1929 Swiss model, bought from Bern, modified to be similar to the final Mauser Parabellum configuration.

I have in my collection the prototype #19 (10.001019 to follow the Mauser numbering), the lower Mauser Parabellum today reported made in October/November 1970 and the configuration is still quite far to the final one available in December. This to highlight that, Mauser was still finalizing the configuration of the gun few weeks before the contractual deadline with Interarms (December 1970).

This is only an appetizer of all the issues describing the adventure of Mauser in the production of the new Parabellum.

The final price was not so high, if you take into consideration all the money spent to solve all the problems and delay.

I hope this helps the discussion but for sure I can provide more detailed explanation if necessary.

Gerben, I will be more than happy to show to you all this material during our next meeting.

Have fun.

Mauro