Great story and awesome find I just seen the other day from an avid 1911/1911A1 collector I thought I’d share. The M1911 was manufactured in 1918 and it probably had the “Black Army” finish. Looks like the other pistol is a WWI German Becker & Hollander Beholla. He didn't disclose what this entire lot cost him but what a nice piece of history he just acquired.

The backstory from the recipient of this lot:
“I ran into this guy that I had met maybe once before, got to talking about our interests, 1911A1 and 1911s. The guy said he had one and it came from a grandson of the vet, said that was about 15 or 20 years ago. There was a divorce in the family and he was able to buy it. I checked the names here in my city and it all checked out. The son and grandson had both lived here. I had to buy the whole group to get the M1911. Hard to put a price on something like this. It's worth more as a group than in pieces. The guns had not been touched while he had it. The M1911 bore looked like a sewer pipe, turned out to be dry grease and cleaned up real nice. At first I turned the deal down, had second thoughts and here we are. Buy the gun not the story they say but something told me I would regret not moving on this.”

“The vet's helmet and pistol belt have his name on them as does the trunk. He was Lt. Arthur H. Joel and wrote a book about his war service called "Under The Lorraine Cross" copy of the book came with the group. Even better story when you read the book.”

That is an awesome find and story!

Hate to see what the price was, but worth it.

What a shame the family never opened the chest earlier and oiled the guns properly tp preserve them.

Sour apples, but what can yu expect from a gun guy...............

Edit: that Kaiser helmet is uber cool, would love to have that little memento, hope that stays in their family.

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Some frog lube will clean that up lol