mawkie
C&R Whisperer
-I was dropping off the latest consignment for a late January all military auction at Redding Auction last Saturday when I noticed a very rare pocket pistol. The Slavia in 6.35mm was a copy of the Browning 1905 pocket pistol minus the grip safety. Produced by Antonin Vilímec, this Czech pocket pistol was produced from 1921 until 1935 when Antonin Vilímec sold the factory to PZK which then produced the pistol with the Mars name. Then in 1937 František Dušek, who started off making barrels for Mars, started producing his own copy of the Mars under the familiar DUO name.
-Being a DUO fanboy I had to make a play for the Slavia. So I threw a firm absentee bid at it and got it for substantially less. Other than some minor freckling it's in VG condition. Especially like that the hard rubber grips have survived intact.
-This is one of the last Slavias built with a 1934 date stamp. No way to know how many Slavia pistols were assembled, but safe to say nowhere near the quantity of DUOs. This one has a production number of 1094 so we know that at least that many were built in '34.
-The Slavia is virtually unseen here on this side of the pond. A deep dive on the 'net only turned up a couple of examples with Scotty @ Pre-98 selling a very nice Slavia rig for $1450 about 4 years ago. His was '33 dated and had a SN just 600 numbers earlier than mine.
-Being a DUO fanboy I had to make a play for the Slavia. So I threw a firm absentee bid at it and got it for substantially less. Other than some minor freckling it's in VG condition. Especially like that the hard rubber grips have survived intact.
-This is one of the last Slavias built with a 1934 date stamp. No way to know how many Slavia pistols were assembled, but safe to say nowhere near the quantity of DUOs. This one has a production number of 1094 so we know that at least that many were built in '34.
-The Slavia is virtually unseen here on this side of the pond. A deep dive on the 'net only turned up a couple of examples with Scotty @ Pre-98 selling a very nice Slavia rig for $1450 about 4 years ago. His was '33 dated and had a SN just 600 numbers earlier than mine.
