Waffenampts
 

Lurking around on some of the other gunboards I see the word Waffenamts used quite often when describing the inspectors stamps, ie; Eagle/63, E/135, etc. To the best of my recollection a 'waffenamt' ie; WaA135 (Karl Ackva) is only used on accessories such as holsters, cleaning kits and like items and never used on a weapon itself. E/135 is a Mauser inspection stamp whereas WaA135 is used on the holster and has no relationship to Mauser whatsoever. Is my reasoning on this correct?

Sorry Herb, E/WaA135 is the acceptance mark on late byf and svw Mauser P.38s AND late Mauser Magazines!!

Thanks Frank, I guess I just haven't come across one yet. My AC45 P38 has the E/368 proof (?) and the SVW 45 of course has no marks other than what looks like a ' mark. When I collected militaria the WaA stamp was all important, but I had never seen it on a weapon.

Herb, is your svw 45 marked with a French Star? Some of the early "French" have at least one E/WaA135. Of course your ac 45 is a Walther, so one wouldn't expect to see a Mauser Acceptance Mark!

Herb et al, Waffenamps (Weapons Office) and final acceptance stamps are synonamus. As Frank mentioned, not all waffenamp stamps start with WaA. So just about any eagle over an inspectors number is considered a waffenamp (eg: WaA/135, E/135, E/359, E/88, E/66, etc). True plant inspector's (not employed by the Government) on lugers, usually consisted of a single numerical digit, letter, or symbol assigned to that inspector. I find it interesting that Mauser used some old DWM contract dies, later on for inspectors symbols: the Portugese triangle in a circle can be found on the rear frame of some M1910/14 Mauser pistols, the Brazilian "B" in a circle on some Mauser rifles, Small Swiss cross or + sign on the interior of some WW2 PO8 parts. TH

Dear friends,
only for your information the correct spelling is "Waffenamt", the translation is o.k. "Amt" means office.
regards
Peter

Frank, yes, the SVW 45 does have the star stamped on the right side of the slide. One thing about it that has me wondering is the stamped sheet metal grips. I can't reason out why the regular plastic grips were not used. Making the the dies, molds or whatever they used, plus designing and making the machinery to stamp the grips out seems really dumb to me when the plastic grips would do just fine. Any thoughts on this? Maybe this should be on the P38 forum but I'm not really that curious.

Herb, I can't answer your question directly. The Germans were experimenting with the metal grips in the late months of the war. Evidentially, they were less expensive and more durable than the plastic grips. Most French P.38s have the metal form for grips and are of various color, mostly gray.

H.P., Waffenamt translated means Waffen = Weapon and Amt = Office. So Waffenamt = Weapons Office. This term is often misspelled, Thanks!!

Herb, To conserve oil, of which the plastic grips were a biproduct, some late war Mauser SVW/45 P38 grips were of stamped steel. These were probably in house when the French took over the Mauser plant and so were used on their SVW/45 and 46s in the g,h & i suffixs. TH