First, I wish I had the money to buy one. I've wanted one for years. I think they are great guns, however safety is the first issue with a C96.

If I remember (its been a number of years since I did the research) you can either get a German made gun or a Chinese made gun. In either case you want to carefully examine the parts for quality. A lot of the guns that came out of China have homemade (blacksmith made) parts.

The original design is not that strong, particularly the 'bolt stop', so there are many reports of the guns exploding backwards at you. Remember that so many were conversions and some of the guns are 100 years old, and the guns from China were 'rode hard and put away wet"

I've seen a lot of cautions about the danger of the 45 caliber versions/conversions - people doubt the original parts were strong enough and the Chinese made guns are not that well made. I understand you can get a new (stronger) bolt stop for something like $25, so its not a big deal, but you must research/investigate this and make sure your pistol is safe.

I think the original German guns were all or mostly made for 7.62x35mm (30 caliber Mauser) and many were converted to 9mm.

There are a ton of sites out there on this gun. here are two.

www.northwest-denture.com/mauser1896/
www.g6csy.net/c96/index.html

i have a C96 broomhandle mauser 9mm made in 1894 to 1898 its in great shape and shoots assume but cant find out how much its worth.
my grandfather brought it back from WW2 any ideas