A rare, German-made Martini variant creates an interesting challenge and fabulous end result

 

by Dominick Pisano

 

The voice at the other end said, “I saw a photo of one of your Martinis on the web. Would you be interested in building a stock for mine?” I responded that, yes, I would but first a few questions. The first thing I wanted to know was which Martini my new customer had and what was the nature of the work in question. He replied it as a large Martini and I immediately thought it was one of those tens of thousands made for the British army during the halcyon days of the British Empire. He said yes, sort of, but it has a funny looking curved trigger guard, double set triggers and was fully engraved.

 

My interest perked up a notch because I knew he was describing one of the Martinis made in Germany or Austria by a myriad of craftsmen, from the Cadet to the large military Martinis, and everything in between. I had never had an opportunity to work on one of these Martinis. In fact, I had only actually seen and held one but once in my career and that was a long time ago. And it was not for sale. This represented a new a challenge.

 

Read more in our December 2011 issue. Back issues are available.

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