1890 gew 88 loewe berlin questions
- Thread starter obie959
- Start date
So what would you like to know?
AndyB
Senior Member
Its G88/05 probably, i assume the barell jacket was force matched to receiver, it looks like halfmoon marking for Turkey? the front ring not serialed to receiver as 13, looks like old german unit, most real 30.Reserve Infanterie Regiment, 12 Company, weapon nr.208, it was probably reblued in Turkey or later?
Last edited:
Cyrano4747
Well-known member
It's a pretty standard Turkish rebuilt Gew88/05, which itself was a modification that the Germans did to older rifles to bring them somewhat up to a more modern spec in the early 20th century. This involved, among other things, converting it from an enbloc loading system to a more standard box magazine and cutting the receiver to allow stripper clips to be used.
A ton of these were sent to the Ottomans as military aid during WW1, and Turkey inherited them after that empire fell apart. Over the years they got rebuilt in service so they typically don't have many, if any, matching parts. Some got rebuilt more extensively than others, and converted to a somewhat more modern spec to go along with their Mauser rifles (removing the barrel shroud, more Mauser-like stock, etc), while others like yours were left in a more original condition. They were imported in pretty large numbers around ~20 years ago, the same time that all the Turkish mausers got brought in.
People argue back and forth about their collectability, but if nothing else they tend to be decent shooters and a good way to get a representative 88/05.
One thing I'll add is that Ludwig Loewe is a fascinating manufacturer to me. It was a tooling factory that eventually got into weapons and, through a ton of purchases and take overs, eventually became the core of the WW1-era DWM. It's also interesting as a Jewish-owned business in the Imperial era. The Loewe family is emblematic of a lot of themes in how German Jews integrated into the rest of society in the Imperial era.
Loewe-made Gew88s in particular are a bit notable because they were the focus of a scandal. The long and the short of it is that an antisemitic asshole by the name of Ahlwardt printed a pamphlet claiming that Loewe was making sub-standard guns for government contracts in order to increase their profits and selling the properly made guns out the back door. There's a lot that can be said about antisemitism in the upper reaches of Prussian/German society in the mid and late 19th centuries, and Europe as a whole at that time (keep in mind this is roughly contemporaneous with the Dreyfus Affair in France), but the Government actually came down on the side of the Loews. There was a big defamation lawsuit, an even bigger government investigation, and in the end Loewe was cleared. There was nothing wrong with their guns that wasn't also a problem with other Gew88s made by other companies, and some design tweaks were made in future years to address them.
Those guns are fun little bits of history.
A ton of these were sent to the Ottomans as military aid during WW1, and Turkey inherited them after that empire fell apart. Over the years they got rebuilt in service so they typically don't have many, if any, matching parts. Some got rebuilt more extensively than others, and converted to a somewhat more modern spec to go along with their Mauser rifles (removing the barrel shroud, more Mauser-like stock, etc), while others like yours were left in a more original condition. They were imported in pretty large numbers around ~20 years ago, the same time that all the Turkish mausers got brought in.
People argue back and forth about their collectability, but if nothing else they tend to be decent shooters and a good way to get a representative 88/05.
One thing I'll add is that Ludwig Loewe is a fascinating manufacturer to me. It was a tooling factory that eventually got into weapons and, through a ton of purchases and take overs, eventually became the core of the WW1-era DWM. It's also interesting as a Jewish-owned business in the Imperial era. The Loewe family is emblematic of a lot of themes in how German Jews integrated into the rest of society in the Imperial era.
Loewe-made Gew88s in particular are a bit notable because they were the focus of a scandal. The long and the short of it is that an antisemitic asshole by the name of Ahlwardt printed a pamphlet claiming that Loewe was making sub-standard guns for government contracts in order to increase their profits and selling the properly made guns out the back door. There's a lot that can be said about antisemitism in the upper reaches of Prussian/German society in the mid and late 19th centuries, and Europe as a whole at that time (keep in mind this is roughly contemporaneous with the Dreyfus Affair in France), but the Government actually came down on the side of the Loews. There was a big defamation lawsuit, an even bigger government investigation, and in the end Loewe was cleared. There was nothing wrong with their guns that wasn't also a problem with other Gew88s made by other companies, and some design tweaks were made in future years to address them.
Those guns are fun little bits of history.
Thanks I got it from my dad who got it back it 73