[reiver]

bought a ruby last week right after i spilt beer on laptop. it is an I. Gaztanaga Eibar; pistolet automatique destroyer. from here and the 'Spanish Pistol' bookit is possible it was french issued. however it is chromed some time ago as chrome is flaking in slide serrations and on end of muzzle. the wood grips have a pilots wings w/ a propeller between the wings. ser#246**matching slide and frame. ser# on mag not matching. the ser#'s are ,except for last 3 on slide still sharp so not sure if polishing before chrome or done at factory.
questions-
were these ever chromed at factory?
any website that i can match pilot wings w/ a country? presume it may be a fighter pilot wings.
not far from carswell AFB so there may be some connection w/ pilots up there.

 

[Bob In St. Louis]

These were not originally chromed/nickled, or anything other than blued. A few that the French still had in inventory in the early 1950s were parkerized prior to being sent to Indochina.

Sounds like you have somebody's "trophy" piece. I have seen so many WWII bring backs that got taken to the local bumper shop and dipped into the chrome vat, it ain't even funny.

 

[reiver]

kinda suspected that. if i can ID the pilot wings on the grips that would give some little bit of history.

 

[reiver]

does the french spelling of auto pistol for sure place it in contract to france WW1? or did this continue after the war? couldn't find any ref to this in 'Spanish Pistols" book.

 

[BEARMAN]

To ID the pilots wings I did a search of "old pilots wings" and on EBAY came up with lots of possibles, if the wings are very small , like jewellry, they may be what were called SWEET HEART WINGS given by a pilot to his sweet heart when he left for overseas. The winged propeller seems to be U.S., but they could have been WW1 wings also. The U.S. Air branch evolved out of the Americans that flew with the French in WW1.

 

[Bob In St. Louis]

Look on the butt of the grip - if there are small stars on both sides of the mag well, then it is definately French issued, WWI. However, based on the serial number range, it is most likely WWI French issued.

 

[daewoo490]

Ruby WWI??

I have a Ruby that I was told my grandfather had got off a German solder in WWII and brought home. Did the Germans use these pistols in war or were they just acquired personally? Seems strange I would expect a Luger to be brought back from WWII.

I understand the Ruby was a French military side arm used in WWI. How did they come into play during WWII?

 

[Bob In St. Louis]

By WWII, the French still had 100,000s of the Ruby pistols in reserve in armories - often times the Germans would press them into service after they captured them.