Crown/O Acceptance on Erfurts only?
 

Does anyone know whether c/O or c/O acceptance stamps on a 1918 dated receiver is proof of Erfurt manufacture or not?

I think it is the letter J and one can find it (with a 3 lobe crown) on Erfurt Lugers only (and not on DWM Lugers).

Klaus, thank you. I thought this was going to be ignored.

The stamping I'm interested in looks just like the letter in my original post except it is underlined. I believe the letter J looks like that below.

Don,
I do not know if it is proof of Erfurt manufacture or not, but I would agree with you that the marking is an underlined "O".

Don,

The inspector listing on Jan Stills's Forum http://luger.gunboards.com/showthrea...EPTANCE-STAMPS reports c/O inspector stamps only on 1916, 1917, and 1918 Erfurts.

Görtz & Wacker's Handbuch Deutscher Waffenstempel lists the only c/O inspector as Herr Osterode at Danzig.

--Dwight

Don, next time your post gets lost in the shuffle, just knock it back up by posting a comment for help on same thread - we never want a member & friend to feel their post is ignored (I sure don't like the feeling :) )

Ed

Ed, what actually happened was that I got absorbed in researching the question of DWM's production of 9-mm P08s and sort of forgot about this post.

Thank you Klaus, Ron and Dwight for your inputs.

Don if I knew the answer to your question I would have responded as soon as I saw it. If someone here doesn't know, you can be sure that the basis for your question probably wasn't documented in all the historical publications. If you are not subscribing to your own posts, I recommend you do so. That way when a response is posted, you get an instant email.

Great question!

John, I do subscribe and get emails. I really don't have any complaints/problems except for my waning ability to multitask.

I have found at this age that when I sharpen my mind enough to be able to multi-task, I end up cutting myself! :eek:

Letters like this came from Gothic, Schwabacher or Fraktur- writing and the letter is never an "O". It is an I or J.

Looks a lot like an "O" to me.

Dwight, thanks for these references. I looked them up and see what you're saying. They are contradictory since Still clearly shows c/O stamps on Erfurt pistols.

The mark I'm really interested in is c/O (underlined). I wonder if there was another inspector O at Erfurt that G&W missed and that underlines either were not reported to Still or were omitted by him in compiling his list. He lists a lot of c/T markings on 1917 & 1918 DWMs that I'm sure are really c/T. He doesn't list any underlined letters.

The underlined letters have been discussed in a few posts in the past. I think underlined T is one of the most frequently encountered but I have seen others. It might be a fun project to compile a photo list of known examples. :) I think general consensus is that, as you have said, there were probably two (or more) inspectors with the same last initial working at the same time. I suspect that there were a few inspectors whose names have been lost to time and therefore have been "missed" by G&S and others.

Don,

The mark you picture is identified as F on p.463 of the Sturgess "red edition".

--Dwight

Close but not quite. The F on p.463 has a very pronounced serif on the top left of the letter. The mark Don posted is sans serif. It does resemble the blurry image on p.462 that G&S identify as a F but it is hard to tell. Don's mark still most closely resembles the Fraktur O that he originally posted. As with many things in the early production and inspection marking of Lugers there appear to be exceptions to what has been published in the research. We are always learning.

Dwight, I have looked at that and examined the stamping on my pistol. I concur with Ron about the lack of an upper left serif on my mark. I also blew up the photo on p. 463 and note that the horizontal bar on the F does not extend across the middle of the character although one of the illustrations shows it continuous but slanted. Mine is continuous and horizontal.

I also note that the O in G&S does not look anything like the O in the G&W Handbuch. I don't know why.

Since Still's list showing the existence of "O" stamps on many Erfurts was compiled before the publication of the G&S book, he and those submitting data must have used the representation in earlier references so I expect my id of my mark as O is consistent with theirs.

How the heck did Germans read this stuff?:(

You think Fraktur is bad, you should try Sütterlinschrift...that is really impossible.

May be it looks like an O but it is an I or J

I'm beginning to see the source of our disagreement --- we are using different alphabets! Mine, illustrated below, was taken from p. 142 of Görtz & Bryans' German Small Arms Markings from Authentic Sources (1997). This alphabet is also found in Görtz & Wacker's Handbuch Deutscher Waffenstempel (2005), pp. 333-42 and Still's Central Powers Pistols (2007), p. 16. I don't have a copy of Still's earlier Imperial Lugers but, if it has a Gothic alphabet, I suspect it is the same as in CPP. I hope someone can check this. Klaus, yours is similar to, but slightly different from, one of the two versions in Görtzz & Sturgess' The Borchardt - Luger Pistols (2010 & 2011), p. 463. What is the source of yours?

Typesetting fonts exist in many variations, both modern and vintage. I doubt that a “standard” Fraktur existed. I know when I studied German in college (a long time ago) all of my textbooks were written in Fraktur, so I usually do not have any particular problem in recognizing the various images posted (when the focus is clear! :)). I suspect that there is/was a considerable difference in printed publications and very likely some differences in the official fonts used on German government weapon inspector’s stamps. They very well may have been different depending on the year and/or arsenal (Spandau, Erfurt, etc.).

To my eye, the example alphabet posted by Klaus looks a lot like Old English "Black Letter" font rather than Fraktur.

On p. 463 of the G&S book, the caption for Fig. 9-2 illustratiing the "Inspector's Alphabet" states that the typographical representations corresponding to those in Klaus' alphabet are "in an Old English/Textualis font." It goes on to say that "...the basic forms shown here, which as can be seen, mostly more closely resemble the more ornate and calligraphic style of Textualis, rather than true Fraktur." I am now in way over my head but the fact that this figure also includes photos of inspectors' marks that very closely resemble the typographical ones confirms that this alphabet was used by inspectors. It does not, however, indicate it was the only alphabet used.

My head is beginning to swim. Who was the idiot who started this thread, anyway?