Arms, Armor and Militaria

9mm Para. 4.7" barrel length. SN: C9885. Blued metal finish overall with polished barrel mounting checkered black Bakelite VIZ and FB logo grips. Short-recoil operated single-action autoloading pistol fed by detachable single stack magazines. Item features the early three levers including takedown lever, slide stop, and decocker. Fixed military front blade and rear notch sights. Butt has been slotted for attaching a shoulder stock, making it a Grade I example with waffenamt marks indicating it was produced under German occupation. C range serial number indicates it was one of the later Grade I pistols. Original Polish manufacture marks to left slide read F.B. RADOM VIS MOD. 35. Pat. Nr. 15567. Serial numbers match on frame, slide, and barrel. Item has been further struck with German inspection and acceptance markings. Left slide struck P.35(P.), the German designation for this model, in addition to Radom assigned {Eagle/WaA77} and Steyr {Eagle/623} waffenamt marks in addition to {WWII German Eagle} acceptance proof. The frame features a second {Eagle/WaA77} marking. Barrel struck with two Steyr {Eagle/623} marks in addition to the German acceptance proof, and a barrel gauge reading of 8,82. Interior of left grip panel appears to have been reinforced with resin. Magazine is blued and unmarked.

Designed on the basis of John M. Browning's Colt 1911 pistol, the wz. 35 Vis successfully replaced the swinging link of the earlier design with wedge-driven unlocking, and employed further simplifications and reinforcement that produced one of the finest handguns of World War II. Piotr Wilniewczyc and Jan Skrzypiński developed the handgun to serve the army of independent Poland, with the first mass produced examples leaving the factory by 1936. Approximately 49,400 examples were produced before the Invasion of Poland in 1939, with a further 313,000 built for the Germans under occupation. Nazi Germany determined that Polish factory workers might smuggle completed handguns out of the Radom factory and into the hands of resistance fighters, so they transferred final assembly of the arms to Steyr, hence the presence of Steyr markings on completed samples.

Having failed to ameliorate the innumerable reasons for the Poles to resist their oppressive rule, the Germans would later find themselves under fire from Vis 35 handguns assembled from parts smuggled out of the factory by members of the Polish Home Army. Despite its excellent qualities, production ceased in 1945, and the pistol was replaced in production by the Soviet Tokarev design following Poland's occupation by the USSR and consequent Communist takeover of the government. {C&R}