Schiffer is an independent publishing house located in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Reference works on arms and armament are crucial to the publishing program of our “Schiffer Military” imprint. Quite a few of our weaponry books have been reviewed or cited by the content creators already active on this website. We are grateful for the support of our readers and reviewers, and excited to contribute on Surplused.com.
Along with new stand-alone firearm books, we have recently created the Classic Guns of the World series (we will continue to expand in both directions in the near future). The Classic Guns books are wide and tall at 9 by 12 inches, which leads to some nice benefits for the consumer. Firstly, the large dimensions allow for large photographs. High-quality color pictures, including close-up detail images, are a strong point of the series. The second benefit of the large format is that it keeps the page count and price down; the books retail for just $24.99 each.
Classic Guns titles cover weapon development and history, but overall they are more focused on technical matters. Particular emphasis is placed on manufacturing details necessary for collector identification. To give you a better idea of the content, I have included the table of contents and several interiors from an advance copy of the newest addition to the series, the Walther P.38.
Among the interesting facts contained in this title are production estimates. The author (Cailleau) concedes that sources differ and exact numbers cannot be determined. He provides ranges; I will stick to approximations based on the ranges. The German military procured about 2.4 million handguns between 1934 and 1945. Of those 2.4 million, about 1.2 million were Walther P.38s. Interestingly, only about half of those P.38s were actually produced at Walther, with the rest being manufactured by Mauser and Spreewerke.
The plan is to use this space to provide information about new releases that are specifically about firearms. If you would like to see all of our gun books, and get a better idea of the other categories we cover, check out our online catalog. For weekly stories and excerpts, plus special discount offers, sign up for the military email newsletter.
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Schiffer is an independent publishing house located in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
