Customer Reviews

German Handguns: The Complete Book of the Pistols and Revolvers of Germany, 1869 to the Present

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is not only a great reference to German pistols and revolvers, from the common garden varieties to the rarest of the rare. It is also extremely well written, and has provided me with hours of enjoyable browsing.

Each piece is listed with a photograph, a brief history of its development, a description of assembly and disassembly, and then a table with all of the essential statistics.

While I have no idea if this book is comprehensive, it is certainly a great resource for collectors and students of history.

While wide-ranging and very well written, deep coverage of the most important German handguns is sacrificed to make room for little known and inconsequential models. I have no idea whether the book lives up to its claim of completeness, but I found the sections on the Mauser C96 and Luger P-08 disappointingly superficial. The illustrations appear to have been afterthoughts and are of indifferent quality.
In all, this book is overpriced by half for what you get.

Good coverage of handguns of German design and production between the years 1869-1999. Information is complete, including production number approximation where production was signficant, and picture(s) of each firearm. The supplied brief takedown descriptions would come in handy when trying to get into an unfamiliar firearm. The author provides interesting editorial comment regarding each gun's popularity and general strengths and weaknesses of design. The book's appendices are organized and useful; mostly cartridge ballistics and headstamp data. A section on Parabellum collector value based on unique variations was OK but a little out of place as beyond the scope of the book.

The photography is historical, so the quality is uneven at best. It is more than satisfactory for the intended purpose of identification. The entire book, other than a very nice color jacket, is black and white - print graphics and photography. It is always nice to see some color plates for the very rare or very popular firearms. The only glaring omission is the lack of a table of contents or a well organized and cross referenced index. The firearms appear in alpha order by manufacturer. however, someone not knowing to look under Parabellum might wonder why Lugers were not included.

Overall, I think this is a useful book that could use a little organization to make it a real gem.

The book appears to cover all the German manufacturers but does not do a good job of covering the models with any depth. Very high level overview with information all available on the internet. It's an overly ambitious title that leaves you thinking of what a great book this would have been had the author partnered with another researcher to go the extra step to provide new information to draw the reader into feeling they had an authoritative reference book. Regarding the pictures, when they are available, are OK (BW) but rarely show both sides or any markings. I thought of returning the book for because it's high cost does not match the information contained within. In the end, however, I kept it since it is a allows for stop-shopping for a quick view of German firearms manufacturers. As I write this review, I actually think I should have returned it since I always seem to have the need to perform internet searches anyway.

Update (Oct 17, 2009)

I guess I had high expectations of the book when I first wrote the review. Since then I have found myself picking the book up quite frequently a reference guide. Still could have had more depth but having all German manufacturers in one volume does prove quite handy. Had I waited longer before writing the review I would have given it at least three stars maybe four due to the fact that I use it quite often.