POTD: Mauser Model 1914 Humpback – Long Barrel, Short Run
Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have an early Mauser pocket pistol that collectors love to hunt for. This is a Mauser Model 1914 “humpback” in 7.65mm (32 ACP), and it’s even rarer since it still wears the original long barrel.
Mauser built this 7.65mm pistol with police sales in mind, and a lot of European departments were already running that cartridge. On the first run, Mauser left extra metal at the back of the slide and thinned it out from the ejection port forward, and that raised back end is where the humpback name comes from. These early humpbacks were pilot models meant to test how the public would take the new gun, and the hump helped set it apart from the Model 1910. Mauser dropped it somewhere before serial number 3,000 once they decided the extra milling step wasn’t worth it. Roughly 3,000 humpbacks were made, and fewer than 1,000 of those got the long barrel.
This one is serial number 300 and was issued to the Prussian rural state police, the Landjägerei, in the district of Köslin. That area sat along the Baltic coast and is part of northern Poland today.
Untouched long barrel humpbacks are the hardest piece of the puzzle. During the Weimar years nearly every one of them had its barrel chopped back to the usual 3 1/2 inches. My guess is that the postwar Allied limits on pistol barrel length had a hand in that, since this barrel runs past 100mm. Either way, finding one that dodged the hacksaw is a treat.
Most of our POTDs utilize images from our friends at Rock Island Auction Company, the premier firearms auction in the United States. Take some time to browse their current auctions – who knows, maybe you’ll find a piece of history to take home!
“Early Mauser Model 1914 Police Issue Humpback Pistol Rig.” Rock Island Auction, www.rockislandauction.com/detail/4097/1366/early-mauser-model-1914-police-issue-humpback-pistol-rig. Accessed 29 Sept. 2026.
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