Beginners Mistake
 

So I will share a mistake I made with a recently purchased Luger. I ran across a 1912 Erfurt that caught my eye because it was unit marked. The seller said it was all matching minus the mag so I looked it over with a fine toothed comb and sure enough all #'s matched, all the proofs were visible where they were supposed to be, good bore, hold open, grips, firing pin all match. Original mid 90% finish. I was sooo excited to find a Erfurt with a unit mark which I later determined to be from a machine gun company attached to the 172 infantry regiment that was part of the 7th army on the western front. Anyway I get home and head right to my gun room to clean it and "Holy Smoke" that's when I noticed no number on the lock bolt/takedown lever. I couldn't believe I missed that, I was furious with myself to overlook something so obvious. All the studying and research from books and the Forum, reading and asking questions, I still made a bone head move! I am fairly over it now and truly like the pistol and convinced myself it still has a lot going for it. I guess it could be worse but thinking it had all matching #'s on all the required parts well not so much. I paid just under 2g's for it so it wasn't to expensive of a mistake. Learned a lesson for sure, to keep more calm and be careful not to get blinded with excitement when looking at something. BTW not blaming the seller at all as I had all the time and opportunity to carefully examine the pistol.
Happy Memorial Day
Jim

Jim, I did the same thing, more than once.
I once bought a 25 acp that wasn't - it was a 25 caliber (?) gas pistol, still cool, but I felt like an idiot. It did have capture paperwork.

A takedown lever with no number on an otherwise desirable pistol. What you missed was an opportunity to beat the seller up on price.

Did a little beating up but not nearly as much as maybe I could have but in all reality I doubt I could have done a whole lot better. The lesson I learned was worth the little I overpaid. At least that's what I'm telling myself to feel better.

Jim

Guilty of that also, WWI DWM with MG markings. Missed the non matching rear toggle, seller took it back. Lesson learned, go slow and take everthing in.

G2