We continue our tour around Europe interviewing firearms manufacturers and Gunsmiths, looking for unusual and unique bits of firearm information to bring you. Yesterday we visited a company that you may not have heard of: Korth Manufacturing.
Korth has a long history of building precision revolvers in Germany starting in 1954. They were the first company authorized to build handguns for the civilian market after WWII. We toured their manufacturing facility, which is located in a small town outside of Frankfurt, Germany, and interviewed the CEO, Andreas Weder.
The Korth Revolver holds the title of being the most expensive production revolver with the standard model starting at around $7,500 each. Highly customized and engraved models go for $25,000 and up. Most of the guns they produce are custom ordered with engraving, special finishes and grips.
Probably the most exquisite set of sculpted grips I have ever seen were on an engraved Korth Revolver that reportedly sold for well over $150,000. (Click here to see the photo album on our GCA Facebook page. Warning: the sculpture is that of a bare breasted woman, so if that offends you, please don’t look.) The Grips sort of look like a Greek “goddess.” I was told that they are a sculpture of the revolver owner’s wife. In my opinion, they are amazing as pure art. I am not sure what they were made of; they look like black marble, but I have been told that it is metal so possibly silver or bronze or even steel that has been colorized.
Korth has a saying: “Not every man can own a Korth.” I would say that is true, because as well as being relatively expensive, due to the hand-built nature of the manufacturing, only a few more than 7,000 revolvers have been made over the last 40 years.
Mr. Korth, the original designer, built the revolver taking what he felt were the best features from S&W, Colt and Ruger Revolvers and then adding his own improvements, including a unique double action sear roller system that the owner can change for a personalized trigger pull or for specific types of shooting.
Unfortunately, Mr. Korth passed away in the early 1990’s after running the company for over 30 years. Since then the company has passed through several sets of hands and now the current owners have vowed to bring Korth back to its glory days. They are accomplishing this by investing in training gunsmiths to hand fit the revolvers to the same original tolerances. They have also upgraded the metallurgy, using very expensive exotic metals which are machined on a 5 axis CNC milling machine to insure that every part is straight and true.
To see inside the guns and understand how they are made, be sure and watch for this segment in an upcoming issue of GunTech video magazine. In the meantime, go to the GCA/AGI photo album on Facebook to see pictures of guns and more info about the trip.
Best regards,
Gene Kelly, President, the American Gunsmithing Institute and the Gun Club of America
