Description
Highly collectable Canadian Inglis Hi Power in mint original condition with holster & correct WW2 JI magazines.
Offered for sale here is a hard to find Canadian made Inglis Hi Power made in the 3rd batch for British & Commonwealth special forces which is in great original condition, with all markings ‘in the white’ having never been refinished post war.
The story of the Inglis Hi-Power is very interesting & collectors will know all this. John Inglis & Company had been around since the mid-19th century but didn’t get into weapons manufacturing until World War I. During the Depression, the company went into receivership but was purchased by a group of investors with the intent of producing various products, including armaments. Inglis re-entered arms production when it was awarded a contract in 1938 to produce machine guns. By the beginning of WW2, the ordnance division of John Inglis & Company was tooled up & producing Bren light machine guns, eventually delivering more than 100,000 by the end of the war.
How the Hi-Power came to Canada & Inglis is an interesting tale of wartime intrigue & resistance. When it became clear the Belgian plant would fall into German hands, plans were sent from the FN factory to the UK, enabling the Inglis factory to be tooled up for Hi-Power production for Allied use. After Belgium fell to Germany in May of 1940, FN became a subsidiary of the Germany’s DWM, producing weapons for the Wehrmacht. However, the director of FN & his deputy were in England when Belgium fell & did not return.
More importantly, small-arms designer Dieudonné Saive, who had perfected John Browning’s Hi-Power concept, escaped to England in the summer of 1941, bringing with him his knowledge of the Hi-Power along with another set of manufacturing drawings for it. Although the British were interested in producing the Browning Hi-Power they decided to send the Belgians to Canada, part of the British Commonwealth.
As part of Canada’s ‘Mutual Aid Plan’, John Inglis & Company would make the pistols. Despite Britain & the Commonwealth being the only thing standing between worldwide domination by the Nazi’s, legal Intellectual Property (IP) was considered important & so licensing of the design was subsequently undertaken with representatives of FN & Browning. In August of 1943, an agreement was reached to pay FN a royalty of 25 cents for each of the 180,000 pistols, plus 15 cents on pistols over that number, but to not produce more than 250,000 total.
Additional production drawings were also necessary & their acquisition was progressing on various fronts. An additional set of original Belgian drawings was supposed to be sent from southern France. Inglis engineers also had six examples of pistols which they were reverse engineering. It was still considered important to recruit Saive & Rene Laloux, another Belgian engineer who had worked on the final production of FN pistols before the war.
As Inglis neared production of the Hi-Power, more interest in the pistols came from the Canadian armed forces, British Special Operations Executive (SOE) & for use by Commandos & other special operations type military forces. Interest was particularly due to increased capacity over the revolvers currently issued as sidearms (6 rnds v 13) plus the obvious increase in rate of fire.
As such, the Browning Hi Power became the only firearm used officially by both sides during WW2 notwithstanding the Colt 1911 was licensed to the Norwegians so technically was also officially used by the Germans in Norway but this is another story for another time.
After WW2, the Hi Power was adopted by British Armed Forces as the standard sidearm replacing the Enfield No. 1 Mk 2 & the Webley MkIV. Over the years, most Inglis Hi Powers underwent the FTR program which involved a recoating of the gun with Suncorite, a thick black finish which covered all markings. Unusually, this gun escaped this process & as you can see, is in the original parkerised original finish. This is evident by the fact the S/N is still ‘in the white’ because when Inglis Hi Powers were made, the serial numbers were applied after the finish. This meant all numbers & markings should be white, or the colour of the metal underneath.
If numbers & markings are in black, this is a surefire indicator the pistol has been refinished & worth much, much less.
This pistol is all matching numbers & unmolested, as can be seen in the photos.
Not only has this one remained in original condition, it comes with the original canvas Commando holster with the cleaning tool & also comes with two (2) original 13 rnd magazines correctly marked JI which are worth a motaza on their own.
The canvas Commando holster appears a little yellowish but in the hand it is the usual pale khaki/OD.
These guns are getting very hard to find & are highly collectable in their own right especially is in this condition with an original wartime magazine.
You will know if this is for your collection so view the photos carefully & make your decision based on what you see as they form the main description & override all written information.
Whilst we check these out for serviceability, the warranty has expired & these are sold on an as is basis.
As with all used guns, we recommend you have this checked by a suitably qualified person prior to shooting.
Call for shipping cost to your dealer.
