1929 DWM Commercial to Weimar Navy service
 

I bought this one a week or so back, got the pictures done. It is an interesting piece for sure,
a "1929" commerical DWM in 9mm, formerly called a "sneak" Luger, sold to/acquired by the Weimar Navy and
navy marked.

Barrel has the C/N proof over the serial 9803(with ghosts) on the bottom; numbered in the Commercial
fashion. The grip is marked with M over an anchor, over N. 91. on the back strap. Matching except
magazine and the grips are not numbered. The left grip is from a grip safety model as it has the cut for same.

Nearby numbers of '29 Navy commercial models on D. Gruber's list are:
9257s with N.53; 9745s with N.69; 9923s with N.61; and 15t with N.73.

Pictures are below and comments welcome!

Also looking for a correctly marked magazine for this pistol; and a correct magazine for an earlier '06 navy- please PM me if you have something.

I keep hearing that term "sneak" used by many folks in describing Lugers. A few months back almost every Luger on GunBroker was described as a "sneak".

What, exactly, does the term mean?

thanks,
Richard

My understanding is that they are commercial pistols internally sold to the military to circumvent the provisions of Post WW1 treaties, which limited the number of weapons the various service branches of the German armed forces could posses.

The Nazi codes later extended this "sneak" aspect by hiding the actual producers of the weapons.

Sadly, there is no "exact" meaning. Alanint's answer was the prevailing one until a few years ago.

Some use it for DWM commercial Lugers with s, t or u suffixes and blank toggles.

Some use it for any DWM commercial Luger with s, t or u suffixes, whether or not the toggle is marked.

More recently, some (including myself) have come to feel it should be applied to only the blank toggles and that these were originally manufactured in violation of IMKK restrictions for sale to the Riff (or Rif) rebels in Morocco. These were not delivered and were subsequently sold to German police units.

Take your pick!

I choose door #4 (Riff) :)

Anyone else have a similar Weimar Navy or another 4" Navy from the era?

Here are a couple pictures of my Weimar Navy P-08, it is matching except for the mag.

Chuck

Don I have several. I would not call yours a sneak. They had blank toggles. Yours is a commercial diverted to the Weimar Navy. I like it, John

Hes one artillery Weimar Nazi Navy

Artillery 18/20, M/Anchor, N1044
 

Don,
One for your records, have owned since July 2009.
DWM Artillery, double date 1918/1920, back strap is M/Anchor over 1044/N. Serial 6371b all matching. The b suffix identical to Costanzo page 326. For those who want to learn more about Imperial Artillery's that end up in the early Nazi Navy, see pages 143-152 in Axis Pistols by Jan Still.