It has been a long time coming, but I finally found a 1st generation model 19! I don’t believe I’ve ever shared the story of how I became a Glock enthusiast/collector, but it all started around the phantom “1st Gen Glock 19.” Sometime around 2010, a dealer friend of mine sold me a 17 and my brother just casually pointed out that it was a 1st generation and that it was probably “worth something.” Prior to that day, I didn’t even know “generations” existed–was definitely part of the “A Glock is a Glock” crowd. I definitely wasn’t a collector of anything so as soon as I heard it was valuable, I posted it for sale on an online auction and laughed at the “sucker” who paid me almost $600 for it. To this day, I don’t even know what serial prefix it might have been or how much it might actually be worth.

After seeing that someone was willing to pay so much for a “rare” Glock, I was intrigued enough to run a google search for “rare Glocks” and stumbled upon a GlockTalk thread: https://www.glocktalk.com/threads/can-we-get-a-list-going-of-the-more-rare-glock-models.1454781/ That thread mentioned the first gen 19, and got me thinking–but no one could actually confirm whether such a gun even existed. Finally, a 1st Gen 19 was posted for sale on Gunbroker sometime around 2012–I still remember how rough it looked but that it closed for a bid of $6725! I couldn’t believe someone would pay so much for a Glock (and today I can’t believe the good fortune of the buyer to have attained one so cheaply). Not long after, the happy buyer posted a thread about his purchase and how it was the last model 19 variant that he needed to complete his collection and that it took five years of diligent searching to even uncover one.

Since that day, I’ve been hoping to get one of these in my hands one day and last week was finally the day! The only downside to all the waiting… the gun belongs to the Glock US collection that is currently on loan to the Cody Firearms Museum and, though I held it in my hands, it stayed at the museum rather than coming home with me. Alas, the search continues…