OLD SCHOOL IRON

Working in gun shops around Detroit, we used to have regular visitors of types you rarely see any more. Once a week, a month or even a few days in a row, someone would walk in, holding a box or a case.

They’d inevitably start with, “I bought a house in Detroit, and … ” or “My grandparents moved to Florida, and I found … ,” and then open the box or case to reveal a firearm.

Given the age of the homeowners (the old homeowners, not the new ones), along with the fact that many of them were veterans, the iron in question was often something back from a war.

The shops I worked in were not alone in this, and it was common to walk into another gun shop and see something pre-1945 in the used case.

Here are a few of the common handguns you’d see.

LUGER

A Luger—of ! There wasn’t a trophy more desired than a Luger. The ones you saw in gun shops were the ones with no