Commercial?
 

Hi.
A friend of mine bought himself a nice P08. :thumbup:

I have a hard time figuring out what exactely it is he has?
Don't think the grips belong to that gun?

Can anyone shed a light on this pistol? Thanx.

On top of the chamber it says; 1936.

Could it be a Commercial Mauser from 1936?

Sorry for the less than perfect pics; its all he has sent me. :mad:

No, I would say it was a 1936 that was then commericialized for sale post war.


The grips are DDR grips, as is the magazine....


Ed

Actually it is a Mauser military Luger which was taken into service by the E. German Deutsches Volkspolizei (DVP or "Vopo"). The eagle and c/U are inspection and proof marks of the state proof house at Suhl 1950-1974. The grips are standard DVP replacement style, and the magazine marked 2/1001 is the standard E. German P08 magazine.

The proofs indicate that some kind of work was done on the pistol's firing train. What are the marks on the barrel? Is there a letter-in-shield surrounded by a starburst stamped anywhere on the pistol?

--Dwight

Dwight, thats kinda what I said :D


I was meaning it went onto the commericial market much later and was sold in europe.


Ed

As in many of the DDR reworks, many of the parts have been switched (a 1936 should have an S/42 marked center toggle link) are renumbered to match. TH

Yep. Nice example of a DDR VoPo gun. The receiver is usually numbered to the frame (force-matched) and they didn't bother to match up the small parts. It's quite common to find the numbers on small parts being X-ed out.

The crown/N on the toggle is not that common on these DDR reworks.

I have to assume that although force matched, they fitted those parts and function tested them....

Ed, yes, they did. These guns usually function pretty well as they didn't see much action after their refurbishing either. Most are long-time arsenal 'sleepers'.

Ed, If the barrel has been replaced, quite often in addition to a C/N proof, there will be a 3 digit number (eg 853) indicating the August 1953 date of rework. TH

Gerben,

Good catch on the c/N on the toggle; I didn't manage to make it out.

The replacement of the toggle train is most likely the reason for the re-proofing.

Peet,

If you still have access to the gun, it would be interesting to see all of the marks which are visible.

--Dwight

Thanx for your replies. :thumbup:

@Dwight;
I've asked my friend to try to locate all marks on his gun and take (better) pictures of them.

As soon as I recieve them I'll post them here.