Historical Hi Powers

[Combat Diver]

Thought I'll share these pictures of these captured Hi Powers out of one of Saddam Hussains palaces in Baghdad in 03'.  First up, notice the initals on the lower right mother of pearl grip.  Pistol is a factory FN engraved Grande Preissance.  Was trying to get the paperwork for a muesum but when I came back 3 mos later it had grown legs.  This was in early 04'.  I did fire a few mags out of the gun.





This one was presented to Uday Hussan (transcrption in Arabic on slide) by a local craftsman.





Enjoy,

CD

[twyacht]

Patton was once asked about his "pearl" handled pistols, and replied, "Only a pimp, or tinhorn gambler would have a pearl handled pistol."

I guess the Hussains qualify. But they are truly a piece of history and really gaudy. Too bad they grew legs.

[m25operator]

Thanks Diver, nice pics.

A client of mine inherited a pistol from his Dad, and brought it back here to Texas, and he asked me if I would look at it and make sure it safe to fire. It was in a military holster and when I pulled it out, it was an old FN Highpower, some pitting here and there. Took it home stripped it and started cleaning and removing minor surface rust, that's when I noticed the eagles. Nazi eagles, they were on the slide, barrel, frame and magazines. It is what is called an occupation Highpower, when the germans took over Belgium, and the FN plant. FN workers were forced to make firearms for the germans. I posted about it before, but don't know if I ever took pics. All the numbers match as well, including the 2 mags. Had it appraised for him, worth about 1500 quick sale price. I have had the darn thing for a year, but he just does not want it back yet? Sometimes I hope he forgets it.

[Walter45Auto]

I saw Pics on a forum one time  of another HiPower that had pearl grips and Saddam's initials in gold inlaid on the grip.

[Jackel]

nice, the best battle souvenir i had was a Ak bayonet 

[Sponsor]

[philw]

no matter the history behind them


the craftsmanship in them are amazing

[Neon Knight Anubis]

no matter the history behind them


the craftsmanship in them are amazing

Indeed, those High Powers are beautiful.

[tombogan03884]

While the engraving over all looks nice we would not except that workmanship in America.
On Uday's pistol the line at the bottom of the slide wobbles and the rectangle the serial number is on waves so badly it cut off the bottom of the last "1" in the number. Not to mention the the  serial number it's self kind of sags at the end.
Saddam's pistol seems to have been numbered by hand as the "3" "9" and "0" are all out of line on the frame and the cross bar of the "T" is not square to the vertical leg making me think it was done with 2 punches, the "9" on the barrel serial number is also out of line.
This makes me suspect that these are NOT Browning manufacture, but locally produced copies.
Modern manufacturing methods use a roll stamp that might go on crooked but the number punches have to be in line because they are all held in the same tool. the

[Neon Knight Anubis]

High Powers I've heard are pretty popular in that region of the world so I wouldn't be surprised.

[1911 Junkie]

I have never cared for engraving on guns.

These ones are interesting only because of the dead bastards that owned them.

I also thought they were poorly done.