When American-born inventor Hiram Maxim went to work developing the first successful machine gun, which would, of course, bear his name, he did so because he was reportedly told if he desired to make a pile of money he should “invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others’ throats with greater facility.”

The result was, of course, the Maxim machine gun, which was adopted by most of the major powers of Europe and certainly accounted for the high butcher’s bill of World War I. His weapon saw use in more than one hundred conflicts from 1886 to 1959 and while Germany, Great Britain and Russia all produced fine versions of the Maxim machine gun, many of the surviving “World Standard” versions of the design are today the one used by Argentina. 

The South American nation had been among the early adopters of the weapon and was arguably the first regional power outside of Europe to see the need for such a firearm. Instead of going with a barebones version, Argentina’s military purchased high-quality versions of the Maxim, with its Navy Purchasing Commission ordering fifty World Standard Maxims in 1895 from the Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company Limited (MNG&ACL) in England.

These machine guns, with serial numbers one to fifty, were chambered in the 7.65x53 Belgium Mauser caliber. A second contract for an additional 130 guns, chambered in the same caliber, were placed by the Argentine Army Purchasing Commission with Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), a licensed manufacturer of the Maxim based in Germany. Those guns had the serial numbers 51 to 180. A third and final contract, signed in 1900, was for another twenty World Standard Maxims from DWM—the World Standard notation being little more a clever marketing term—and numbered 181 to 200.

Argentina wasn’t the only nation that used the version, and nations such as Singapore and Austria purchased some of the weapons, and at least three were employed by the Force Publique, the private army of the Belgian Congo. Prices of each gun were around £200-£300 at the time—and in current dollars would be nearly $50,000 per weapon!

High Quality  

What is notable about the “World Standard” version is that these—except for the final twenty ordered—were fitted with truly superior components, which included brass water jackets, brass fusee spring covers. In addition, the feed block, receiver floor plate and even rear grip plate were made of brass, which is why those models have been described over the years by firearms historians and collectors alike as the “Brass Maxims.”

While machine guns of the era had a true utilitarian look, the World Standard Maxims were akin to works of art and were certainly of the level of craftsmanship of high-end sporting shotguns of the era. Many of the guns were further mounted on wheeled field carriage that further showed off the artistry of the weapon.  

Another interesting point is that Argentina was actually one of the only nations in South America to go all in with the Maxims, as the other nations adopted French Hotchkiss machine guns instead. Brazil and Paraguay adopted the Maxim in small numbers, and none to the level of quality as the World Standard models, but notably Chile and Peru—which each had Germanic style uniforms including the use of the iconic pickelhaubes (spiked helmets) used the French machine gun. 

Few Remaining Examples  

As Argentina didn’t take part in any major conflict in the early twentieth century, its finely crafted Maxims saw no use in combat. The weapons remained in the military arsenals until 1929 when the Maxim World Standard machine guns were issued to the police units. Thirty years later in 1959 the guns were declared obsolete and sold as military surplus.

What is notable about this fact is many early Maxims had water jackets made out of brass rather than steel, but by World War I many were recycled. As a result, most surviving Maxims have the steel water jackets, apart from a handful of early Maxim machine guns used by the Imperial Russian Army and a few of the World Standard Maxims used by the British military in the late nineteenth century.

However, as author and machine gun historian Robert Segel noted in his detailed history of the weapon, a total of ninety-one of the World Standard Maxims were imported by Sam Cummings of Interarmco of Alexandria, Virginia, in the 1960s. Of those eight guns were exported, twenty-eight ended up in government custody for museums while fifty-five are in private collections. As a result of the rarity, even the deactivated versions have been highly sought after by collectors and one functional one (which required a normal machine gun transfer via the ATF) sold at auction in 2018 for $36,000 plus fees, while another sold a year earlier for nearly $45,000 plus fees. Clearly there are collectors who see the value in these finely tuned weapons.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers and websites. He is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com. 

Image: Reuters