I thought this image might be interesting to C96 fans. I've been looking for it for several weeks and finally sat down today with several boxes of my dads glass negatives from WWII and found it.

My dad was in the signal corp in Europe during the war. I'm not sure when he went over but was there until the end in 1945 so this had to be before the end of 1945. This could have been in Belgium, England, the Netherlands or France. There was nothing written on the paper neg jacket other then "5 coffees and Six Sugars".

I owned a Mauser 9mm C96 and wooden holster some years back when I was collecting military arms. I always thought they were very cool guns. My uncle had a full auto Spanish made version.

The center fellow has a revolver but I have no idea what it is. I did an enlarged crop hoping someone might know what it is too.

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Just guessing, but the revolver looks like a French MAS 1873. I cannot think of another with a barrel stepped like the one in the photo.

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Release the Kraken

Thanks for the info. I'm not at all familiar with French firearms.

I'd also guess the French MAS 1873/1874

They were in 11mm caliber.
Really the same revolvers. The 1873 was finished 'in the white' and had an unfluted cylinder.

The 1874 was blued w/some small parts finished in the white.
The 1874 has a fluted cylinder.
Supposedly the '74 frame is a little narrower. They always looked about the same to me!
The ammo is very short stubby 44cal+ centerfire rounds that no one ever sold as surplus it seemed. The revolvers and their later French 8mm revolver replacements used to go begging for buyers for that reason. I guess most of the French Milsurp was that way come to think of it.
Some well made stuff though.

Can't tell in the pic which of the two Models it might be.
I think I see a fluted cylinder (M1874).,,if it is indeed that French revolver.

Very nice old picture... Treasure it!

You mean one of these??

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	French M1873L.jpg (103.7 KB, 87 views)
	French M1873R.jpg (97.8 KB, 93 views)

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Dean
SWCA #680 SWHF #446

I’ll take a closer look at my original scan and see if I can make out any detail in the cylinder.

Surprised that any dry glass plate negatives would have been used during WWII. They were pretty well extinct long before then. At one time I had several dozen 5x7 glass negatives, but all those were from the very early 20th Century.

is it an 1889 Bodeo? But if that is a side mounted ejector rod than a Mas 73/74

1879 reich revolver ?

Digging through some of my old literature I found this in a "1899 " Forest and Stream paper. It's a advertisement for the C96 they were pretty pricey for the time.

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SWHF #595

There are still glass plates in production to this day. They’re available from a couple of sources but during WWII they were still in wide use. Not like film but plate cameras were quite common. Matter of fact I do collodion wet plate photography on glass and tin just exactly like in the 1860’s. They’re ambrotypes and tintypes That I sell through art galleries and do for magazines and advertising.

Both images pictured are ambrotypes made on black glass with period lenses from the mid 1800’s.

The bird photo is one of the last passenger pigeons. This one died roughly one hundred years ago and was for a magazine article on the extinction of the passenger pigeon for the national park service. It was the 100th anniversary of the last passenger pigeon.

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The Bodeo has no trigger guard.

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Expect the unexpected

The 1879 reich revolver has no ejector rod.

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Expect the unexpected

Back in my old Southern Ohio home town, there is a stuffed passenger pigeon under a glass dome in the local library, which was the last one seen in that part of the state. I don't remember the date but I think the very last one of them died in the Cincinnati Zoo. See: yourppl.org/history/items/show/5013

Interesting picture. The image may be reversed but one of the two shooters is left handed. Camera was probably not US Signal Corps issue, it was likely liberated like the two pistols.

The image is not reversed. Note the shirt buttons.

A thing I find strange. Even though the fellow with the Mauser seems to be in a good shooting stance and ready to fire. The safety is still engaged.

The fellow with the revolver, on the other hand, already has cocked the hammer.

Edit. Also. The Mauser is probably empty. The hammer is down.

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Expect the unexpected

Given those clues, as with a lot, maybe the majority of old photos, this is probably a posed shot, not a snapshot taken in the middle of a shooting session