Any information about the gun would be appreciated

[william]

I recently inherited a gun that I wish to sell and I am trying to find out the history of the gun.

There is a similar Browning Hi-power P-35 with tangent sight for sale on GunBroker.com so I sent a message to the seller asking, “Can you please tell me how you determined the production year of 1940?”

His response was, “1940 is when they were delivered to the Finnish government.”

His gun has the number “12557” stamped on it.

The number that is stamped on the gun I have in my possession is “5160.”

I am interested to know what year my gun was manufactured and other relevant information about its history.

Any help would be appreciated,

William Sims

[ToddSig]

Feb 13, 2024 21:59:47 GMT -5 william said:

I recently inherited a gun that I wish to sell and I am trying to find out the history of the gun.

There is a similar Browning Hi-power P-35 with tangent sight for sale on GunBroker.com so I sent a message to the seller asking, “Can you please tell me how you determined the production year of 1940?”

His response was, “1940 is when they were delivered to the Finnish government.”

His gun has the number “12557” stamped on it.

The number that is stamped on the gun I have in my possession is “5160.”

I am interested to know what year my gun was manufactured and other relevant information about its history.

Any help would be appreciated,

William Sims

Welcome to HPS william

Please post some images of your High Power. While the serial number does indicate an early production HP, you can't always date by serial number due to contract requested serialization. Please show roll marks and any proof marks. With that we should be able to credibly comment on the production date and perhaps contract vs commercial.

BTW, re the Finnish example you were looking at on GB, it should have Finnish acceptance marks on it if the description is correct. One of the main ones was an SA.

[william]

Hello Todd -

I could not determine how to upload an image so as you can see I uploaded a video (twice I'm afraid).

Any input you or anyone else may have would be greatly appreciated.

William

[ToddSig]

No worries william the video works great. Nice work around.

Looks like you have one of the early Lithuanian High Powers. Congratulations. This is based upon the "Pillars of Gediminas" crest on the top of the slide. The * over A is the inspector mark of Nicolas Woit who inspected between 1911 and 1940. According to Vanderlinden's 3rd edition, the Lithuanian contract was from 1937, and in addition to the crest they had a fixed lanyard staple, like yours. Some parts also may be marked with the Pillars crest, as major parts were accepted by Lithuanian inspectors while be assembled at FN. They had the type 2 tangent sight with full meter coverage, and the stock cut, but were not ordered or shipped with shoulder stock. Vanderlindedn states about 7,000 HPs were manufactured by FN for this contract. It is too bad someone got to the front grip strap with an electric pen. If it not too deep in might be possible to remove, but then some rebluing would be necessary.

Some infor from Forgotten Weapons - Sold for $3,450 at the December 2019 RIA Premier auction.
www.forgottenweapons.com/pillars-of-gediminas-the-lithuanian-high-power/




Nice find.

[william]

Thank you so much for your response Todd.