WWII GERMAN BROOMHANDLE PISTOL -
The Mauser C96 (Construktion 96) is a semi-automatic pistol that was originally produced by German arms
manufacturer Mauser from 1896 to 1937. Unlicensed copies of the gun were also manufactured in Spain and
China in the first half of the 20th century.
The main distinctive identifying characteristics of the C96 are the integral box magazine in front of the
trigger, the long barrel, the wooden shoulder stock which can double as a holster or carrying case, and a
grip shaped like the handle of a broom. The grip's distinctive appearance earned the gun the nickname
"Broomhandle" in the English-speaking world, and in China the C96 was nicknamed the "box cannon"
because of both its square-shaped internal magazine and the fact it could be holstered in its wooden
box-like detachable stock.
The Mauser pistol was used in the following wars.
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YEARS |
WARS |
1 |
11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 |
Secons Boer war |
2 |
10 October 1911 until February 12, 1912 |
Xinhai Revolution |
3 |
Summer 1914 until November 1918 |
WWI |
4 |
January 1919 until July 1921 |
Anglo-Irish War |
5 |
1917 until 1923 |
Russian Civil War |
6 |
17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939 |
Spanish Civil War |
7 |
July 7, 1937 until September 9, 1945 |
Second Sino-Japanese war |
8 |
1939 until 1945 |
WWII |
9 |
April 1927 until 1949 |
Chinese Civil War |
10 |
25 June 1950 until armistice signed 27 July 1953 |
Korean War |
10 |
1 November 1955 until the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. |
Vietnan War |
This page is a recognition and identification guide for WWII German collectibles. Multiple
detailed photos of a specific sample are provided. Descriptions point out clearly defined points
that should be noted.
One of the most commonly asked questions is "How much is my WWII German collectible worth?". A price
guide is included here to address this question. The value of the collectibles is reviewed
over a period of several years. A trend can be observed. The present worth of the German
items in the collector's market is illustrated.
This service is provided free of charge to the visitor/enthusiast courtesy of
MilitaryItems.com,
a company dedicated to the preservation of military history and to providing quality military
antiques and collectibles to museums, institutions and the general public.
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The Mauser C96, with its shoulder stock, long barrel and high-velocity cartridge, had superior range and
better penetration than most other standard pistols; the 7.63x25mm Mauser cartridge was the highest
velocity commercially manufactured pistol cartridge in existence until the advent of the .357 Magnum
cartridge in 1935.
Approximately 1 million C96 pistols were manufactured by Mauser alone, with the number produced in Spain
and China being large but unknown due to the loss, non-existence, or poor upkeep of production records
from those countries.
Within a year of its introduction, the C96 had been sold not only to governments, but also commercially
for resale to civilians and individual military officers.
The Mauser C96 pistol was also extremely popular with British officers at the time and purchased privately
by many of them; numbers were supplied to Westley Richards in the UK for this purpose, although its
popularity with the British military had waned by the onset of World War I.
As a military sidearm, the pistols saw service in various colonial wars, as well as World War I, The
Estonian War of Independence, the Spanish Civil War, the Chinese Civil War, and World War II. The C96
also became a staple of both Bolshevik Commissars and various warlords and gang leaders in the Russian
Civil War.
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