Was it cheap? Sure. But what really stands out for this firearm is the history behind the purchase. Made in West Germany not long after the rise of the Berlin Wall, this little gun came into the family for self-defense purposes during a string of crimes in the area we lived.
My father was a veteran of the Korean War, but we didn’t have any firearms in the house until he bought this particular pistol. What changed? Well, in 1964, our family lived in a very rural and rugged part of Pennsylvania. Our small town of Shade Gap became the target of a man who terrorized the community.
The man would strike and then vanish into the woods, going so far as to lay traps of logs to stop cars and attack women on the road. He roamed the area for several years, and my father bought the revolver knowing he would have to leave the family behind when he went to work.
This small little revolver guarded our home as one of the largest manhunts in American history scoured the land around our otherwise little-known town. In the final days of the manhunt, with helicopters landing on our school playground and the National Guard swarming the area, it ended with the perpetrator being shot and killed by law enforcement.
I was only a kid then, but that is how I came to know my first firearm.