Joseph McNeil
Growing up in the 60 and 70s, I was always a huge Bond fan and especially aligned with Sean Connery. The iconic picture of Sean Connery holding the long barreled pistol next to his cheek is such a classic photo. However, the photo was so iconic that I never gave it much thought till about a year ago, that the 1950s competition Walther LP53 (LP stands for Luftpistole or “air pistol”) that my dad had let me shoot from time to time when I was growing up and that I now have packed away in a trunk in my closet, could possibly be the same gun.
It was only one day when I was trying to “move and scale” the picture on my iPhone to make it my home screen picture (as I was zooming in and out) that I just happened to look at the photo very closely and recognize it as the pistol that I’ve known about and have had in my family for over 50 years. Wow…my first “Bond collectible” and I’ve had it for years and never knew it.
In case you didn’t know the story behind using this gun in the photograph instead of the Walther PPK (which I shared with Paul Kyriazi of JBLS…and that he didn’t know) was that the PPK that was to be used was forgotten, so the photographer or a production assistant volunteered their Walther air pistol (at least keeping the Walther name in the shoot) as a backup prop for the shoot (apparently the person who owned the gun had bought it to shoot rats around their rural UK home).
Connery apparently really liked the feel and look of the gun and it looked great in the pictures. And the rest…is history.
Several years ago, the actual LP53 used sold for about $430,000…which has a black stock and a serial number of 054159. My dad’s gun has the brown stock numbered in the 48xxxs…obviously several years older.
Although, not as valuable as 054159 (you can buy one of these guns on the open market for about $250 to $350), my dad’s gun is priceless to me…as a memento of my “Bond Passion”.
That is so awesome! I wish I could find something like that left from my father.
wonderfull gun