German WWII holster and shoulder stock

[Baribal]

Hi,
can anybody tell me what this WWII holster incl shoulder stock is worth?
I've found only a few online since it is quite rare. The price range was from 400-1000€

Produced by Browning in Belgium, these holsters (and also guns) were apparently used by SS- and Wehrmacht. I think it is a holster for a Browning (An FN HP M35 9mm Parabellum)

Thanks in advance
Baribal

 

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[crashbandicoot]

Hi,
can anybody tell me what this WWII holster incl shoulder stock is worth?
I've found only a few online since it is quite rare. The price range was from 400-1000€

Produced by Browning in Belgium, these holsters (and also guns) were apparently used by SS- and Wehrmacht. I think it is a holster for a Browning (An FN HP M35 9mm Parabellum)

Thanks in advance
Baribal

I think most of those were for Artillery model Lugers,but I,m not sure if they were produced for HP,s.Could very well have been.Someone who knows for sure will likely be along soon.I do know they,re rather rare and command a good price.

 

[Red-Coat]

Nice scarce item.

Yes, your combo-holster was made to take the FN Herstal semi-automatic 9mm. Although referred to as a “Browning” (and Browning Arms did indeed make some of them), John Browning’s original design was adapted by Dieudonné Saive of Fabrique Nationale (FN) at Herstal in Belgium through the late 1920s/early 1930s. The pistol was first adopted by Belgium for military service in 1935, designated as the “Browning P-35” and produced by Fabrique Nationale in Belgium.

There were two models: an “Ordinary Model” with fixed sights; and an “Adjustable Rear Sight Model”. Only the latter had a slotted grip for attaching a wooden shoulder stock, so your holster was specifically made for that model, which was discontinued in the early years of WWII.

Part of the reason for the discontinuation was that the Fabrique Nationale factory was taken over by the Wehrmacht after the Nazis occupied Belgium on 28th May 1940. The factory was then used by the Germans to produce equivalent pistols under the new designation “9mm Pistole 640(b)”. There were three models produced under occupation, the first of which retained the slotted grip for a shoulder stock but this was abandoned with the introduction of the second model in January 1941. Mostly these pistols are believed to have been issued to the Waffen-SS and Fallschirmjäger personnel (the parachute branch of the Luftwaffe).

In the meantime FN Herstal set up a new operation in Canada using John Inglis and Company’s factory to produce for the allies. The name “Hi-Power” (a reference to the 13-round magazine capacity) was adopted at that time and continued to be used when production returned to Belgium after the war.

The AC.39 embossed stamp on your holster is a Belgian military inspection mark, but it’s a pre-war mark, or at least a pre-occupation mark. So your holster was made sometime between 1935-1940, but could well be a ‘surrendered’ or ‘captured’ item from the earliest years of the war. My understanding is that once the Germans took over, the holsters were soon produced with German markings and without the stock compartment from 1941 onwards. They wouldn’t have wasted any Belgian ‘war surplus’ and certainly re-issued many captured items to their own forces but mostly the Belgian-marked holsters that were re-used by the Germans seem to have had the shoulder stock compartment removed for use with the second or third models of the 640(b) that had no provision for a stock.

Value-wise I don’t know, but I could see a collector paying a Euro price in the mid to high hundreds for it, especially since you have the stock as well.

 

[Doublebarrel]

Red Coat explained it quite nicely, the stock and holster are for the pre ww2 Browning high-power pistol in 9mm the rig you have is quite rare here in the USA if it was sold here you could get about 1500 to 2000 US dollars

 

[Doublebarrel]

The only thing that I would correct on Red Coats answer is the AC 39 should be stamped on the leather holster they were either stamped AC 37 AC 38 or AC 39

 

[Baribal]

Thank you very much for your answers! I'm very impressed by your background knowledge!
I just need to correct Red-Coat. The holster has an AC39 stamp and not AC35.
The circumstances in which this holster has been found were quite interesting. It was found behind a wall in an old German farm. The farm owner tore down an old brick wall in his attic. Behind that wall he found several uniforms (SS/Wehrmacht etc), helmets, rifles, machine guns, handgrenades in their original boxes, some of those red swastika flags, medals, there were some P08 as well as a variety of edged weapons (SS/Wehrmacht/Luftwaffe) and of course ammunition. While all the guns, grenades and ammunition were picked up by a bomb disposal team, a collector bought what was left. They only kept two holsters.

If there is anybody interested in this holster, he or she can write me a message. If it is possible to send it to the United States I will sell it

 

[Red-Coat]

The only thing that I would correct on Red Coats answer is the AC 39 should be stamped on the leather holster they were either stamped AC 37 AC 38 or AC 39

I just need to correct Red-Coat. The holster has an AC39 stamp and not AC35.

Apologies.... that was an unintentional typo on my part (now corrected).

 

[Baribal]

Apologies.... that was an unintentional typo on my part (now corrected).

May I ask, where you have all the information about this holster from?
I could find barely anything

 

[Red-Coat]

May I ask, where you have all the information about this holster from?
I could find barely anything

Collated from various sources when doing previous research on another item. Some of it came from multiple militaria discussion forums and, if I recall correctly, some of the history came from the Wiki entries for the weapons themselves.