Customer Reviews

Thompson Submachine Gun

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I bought a pristine copy of this book last year through Amazon at a price of $750.00. In my opinion, this book will only become more valuable. The author is an expert on the history, nomenclature and purpose of the Thompson Submachine Gun and it's inventor. The book is becoming more and more rare. My book holds an esteemed position in my climate controlled gun vault. I use it for reference from time to time and sometimes just take it out to browse through and enjoy. It is one of the crown jewels of my collection.

When Roger Cox published "The Thompson Submachine Gun" in 1982, it was a much needed work on the subject from a collector perspective. He teamed with William J. Helmer (author of "The Gun That Made The Twenties Roar," published in 1969) to produce the historical accounts featured in the book, and then added technical information and model comparisons acquired from at least a decade of collecting, buying, and selling Thompsons. This resulted in a very good work of high quality printing and presentation. The book is out of print, and will not be republished. Very high prices are paid for existing examples. Most of the information can be found in later books on the Thompson that can be obtained much less expensively. About 40% (92 pages) of the Cox book contains narrative text and pictures covering the TSMG. The other 60% or so contains full reprints of various Thompson manuals and catalogs, as well as a list of the 15,000 Colt Thompson serial numbers, and as many of their original owners as had been documented at the time. Cox was the first to begin to document the Colts by serial number, and this effort has been continued in works by other authors. Overall, this book is a very nice one to have in an advanced Thompson collection, but is very expensive, and the content has been mostly eclipsed by other works.