Very nice C96 Mauser pistol – legendary weapon – Manufactured by Mauser Oberndorf A/M around 1913 – 7.63 Mauser – Stock holster for shooting and transport – TBE +

The Mauser C96 is more of a legend than a weapon.

C96 could be the coordinates of a point in the space-time of global armament, the subliminal yet striking common link between Churchill, Lawrence of Arabia, Stalin, and Nicholas II, to name just a few famous figures who dealt with the C96, whether they were in front of the barrel or (more likely!) behind it...

The weapon had a fantastic career. In the real world and in imaginations. Mostly in imaginations. It is associated with a good part of the adventures, adventurers, revolutions, and conflicts of the early 20th century.

In cinema, you see it everywhere. Alongside Clint Eastwood in Joe Kidd or Han Solo in a final, hypothetical laser version of Star Wars. An almost poetic version.

Our C96 is never dead.

And yet it all started with a huge argument. One of Paul Mauser’s most famous rages, and he was not short of those.

Paul Mauser, designer of legendary weapons, did not have only successes; especially with handguns. He had just failed twice, after much investment, energy, and disappointed hopes, in the German army’s handgun replacement competitions with his C77 and C78 models, including his famous and highly sought-after Zig-Zag model among collectors.

He had therefore sworn never to be caught out again and had forbidden any handgun development in his design offices.

And then, unexpectedly, in the summer of 1894, he discovered that the Federle brothers, especially Fidel Federle, his closest collaborator, had been working for over a year on a semi-automatic handgun prototype in 7.63 caliber, a caliber that seemed promising to them. All this secretly, using the factory’s material and human resources and on their working time.

Basically, Paul Mauser was openly contradicted and was the last to know what was going on in his own company.

He was furious, hysterical, and the Federle brothers and their many accomplices had a hard time. The matter took a long time to settle, which explains why it took more than a year to finally produce a presentable weapon for a competition.

But it was too late, the model was already well advanced and promising. Even innovative in 1894. Paul Mauser had no choice but to calm down and try not to lose everything by going all the way against his will.

Alas, alas, the bad luck that hangs over Mauser handguns was still there. And that damned Austrian Georg Luger began developing his famous Luger barely a year after the Mauser team put the finishing touches on their famous C96 pistol. Since pistols had a hard time convincing the general staffs at the start of the century, they took their time testing everything that came out. And the two weapons were therefore finally in direct competition from 1900/1902 during the major military tenders of the early century.

And there, alas, there was no contest. The Swiss chose the Luger in 1900, followed by the Germans in 1904 for the Navy and in 1908 for the Army. Luger sold his beautiful pistol widely and in large numbers, from Bulgaria to the USA. Paul Mauser was again defeated in handguns. Fatalitas!

The Luger was simpler to produce, lighter, less bulky, and its detachable magazine system gave it a great reloading advantage over the Mauser with its antique stripper clip system. End of major military contracts for the Mauser C96.

And yet the Mauser is a superb weapon. It is of a solidity bordering on perfection because the barrel and frame are machined from a single block of very high-quality steel. No handgun can rival it in this respect. Indestructible.

But that is also its weakness because machining it is a feat, and the slightest machining error, in an era without CNC, meant scrapping the weapon. It is...
and therefore expensive to produce and costly to buy.

Mauser designed a very clever wooden stock case for his C96 that allows it to be carried and also transformed in a fraction of a second into a mini-carbine, making shooting much easier and more accurate. It’s very ingenious and a lot of fun at the range, sworn by Master Flingus. In fact, Luger copied the system on his 1902 and especially for his artillery Lugers.

But nothing helped, and despite the very prestigious sponsorship of Kaiser Wilhelm II himself, after its failure against the P08, Paul Mauser’s C96 won only a few military contracts: 5,000 units for the Italian Navy in 1899, an order for the Ottoman Empire, and one for the Persian Empire of 1,000 weapons each. Nothing. And these firearms have become true rare collectibles highly sought after today.

Nevertheless, it still became almost standard issue in 14-18 in the German army since the Heer ordered 150,000 civilian models in 1916, but in 9mm caliber, to cope with its acute shortage of handguns. But still, 150,000 is not much, especially in 1914-1918.

Being expensive, civilian sales didn’t really take off either. Perhaps its very harsh design and almost “bandit” style worked against it as well.

And yet, it’s this design and its fundamental sturdiness that attracted adventurers, restless officers, or hot-headed revolutionaries of all nations deprived of “automatic” standard issue weapons.

It was very popular in Tsarist Russia where many officers bought it privately before 1914. It also became popular among Bolshevik revolutionaries. Iosif Dzhugashvili, then known under the pseudonym Koba, and the party’s chief financier long before the 1917 Revolution and before becoming Stalin, was a C96 user. From blackmail to bank robberies, various raids to piracy in the Black Sea, he gathered the funds necessary so that exiles like Lenin or Trotsky and escapees from penal colonies could live without ever working a day in their lives and only prepare the Revolution. He regularly evaluated the money thus collected in “Mauser equivalents” which the Russian revolutionaries would buy directly in Germany.

Many famous adventurers or terrorists would equip themselves with this rugged weapon.

The young Lieutenant Churchill bought one in London in 1898 with his own money and used it, with his injured arm thanks to the famous stock case, in Sudan against the Dervishes at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. His C96 would see service again during his thrilling adventures as a journalist during the Boer War around 1901.

It was also the weapon of Yankel Haimovitch Yourovski, better known as Iakov Mikhailovich Yourovski, who personally killed Tsar Nicholas II with his C96 as head of the execution squad of the imperial family in Ekaterinburg on the grim night of 16-17 July 1918.

Nicholas II was not the only notable figure to fall under the bullets of a Mauser C96 pistol in any of its variants: the weapon also eliminated Spanish Prime Minister Eduardo Dato in 1921 and King Alexander I of Yugoslavia, accompanied in death by French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou in 1934 in Marseille.

Lawrence of Arabia in his peninsular adventures, Kaiser Wilhelm II at the shooting range before 1914, Indian revolutionary Ram Prasad Bismil in 1925 during the Kakori train attack, a dress rehearsal for the Indian revolution against the British, Chinese General Zhu De, communist leader of the Nanchang uprising in 1927 which marked the start of the Chinese revolution, Irish revolutionary De Valera at Easter 1916, and the famous Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, in his last combat, all carried it by their side.

In short, a myth, this C96…

So legendary that it was extensively
copied in China (at least three models), in Spain (at least six models) and even in the USA at the end of the 1980s!

Paul Mauser didn’t see all that.

He died in May 1914 just before the great catastrophe. If he hears what we say about his C96 today, he must be smiling thinking about his rant from 1894.

Our example is a very good one, truly German, from Paul Mauser in Oberndorf although not single-serial numbered.

It is in very good condition. Mechanically excellent, its barrel is truly mirror-like with beautiful rifling and it is accurate when shooting.

Its serial number (150xxx) places it, according to my research, around 1913.

It bears, as it should, good crowned German proof marks “U” and “M” as suits a civilian version produced under the Empire. It could very well have been alongside a German officer in 1914-1918 who bought many privately, like their Russian counterparts, attracted by its very sturdy nature. It is very well finished, a mark of pre-war production – the “9mm red” Mausers from the military order after 1916 are generally much less well finished.

Its grips are original though a bit worn and its bluing is original too without the slightest trace of oxidation – just a little lightened in places – It is in its correct caliber 7.63 or 0.30 Mauser. A very beautiful piece, truly period and not cobbled together like many, often eaten by rust… (Master Flingus hates rust except in bouillabaisse).

It also comes with a magazine blade and a stock holster copy for transport and shooting of very good quality. If you look for it separately from this stock holster, it will cost you – as a repro – between 150 and 250 euros. Besides a “classy” way to carry it to the range under the ovations of the crowd, it is really very useful for shooting.

In the end, a legendary firearm, complete with its most fun accessories and above all in a condition that is becoming very hard to find.

If you must own only one iconic handgun from History and you appreciate “Deutsche Qualität”, this is the one you need.

CATEGORY B FIREARM UNDER THE CSI: SUBJECT TO AUTHORIZATION, PHOTOCOPY OF ID AND ORIGINALS OF AUTHORIZATION PARTS 1 AND 2 (or Part 1 of a released authorization). Shipment against signature in two separate packages at least 48 hours apart mandatory.

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