The above picture model 21 is not mine (at least not yet) but is a screen grab from a recent gunbroker listing I ran across. Over the holiday break, I have to confess to severe boredom thanks to 2020 so one morning I decided to look at every listing for “Glock” in the semi-auto category on gunbroker. It took quite a few hours to browse through everything listed but this was a variation that I have not seen before. Up until now, I believed that Austrian proofed models came in three categories: 1. Guns made and imported prior to the establishment of Glock Inc in the US. 2. Guns imported on the secondary market for one reason or another that, thus, have import markings. 3. Guns made during occasionally shortfalls in the US supply that necessitated shipments being redirected here rather than to other markets (think the “Obama Glocks” from 2008). Category 1 would just contain Gen 1 guns and early Gen 2s in 17, 17L, or 19 models. Category 2 could actually be any model and could even be models that don’t exist in the US–especially early early guns or calibers/variants made just to satisfy foreign gun control regulations. Category 3, at least from the ones I have seen, were all Gen 3 guns and could only be from the 2008 panic–I’m not 100% on whether there were any other times that that situation occurred. The gun pictured, however, does not meet any of these definitions. By the serial number, it is too late in production to be part of category 1 and too early for 3, but it is not import stamped to match category 2. I suppose this would mean that there are other windows where pre-stamped inventory was shifted to the US market and the exciting thing for collectors is that it means there are a whole other sub-set of rare guns to be had with few collectors searching or even aware of their existence!

Happy hunting my friends!