New guy with many questions
 

At least 25 years ago my dad and I bought several lugers from an insurance company salvage auction. I never paid much attention to them and were stored at dad's house. He passed away a few months ago and going through things, came across these. I'm a bit unsure of how to use this site's search function so the 1st question is one answered a million times before I suppose but, all the lugers I have I see a year stamp on the frame except a Erfurt long barrel which I guess is called an artillery model. How do you tell what year it is? Has a 4 digit ser.# 298X. Thanks

Rick, You need much more information on the long barrel to answer your question. Does the barrel have an adjustable sight near the chamber?
Do you have any photo's?
If you cannot post them you can send them to me.

lugerholsterrepair@earthlink.net

Jerry Burney

Rick, to add to Jerry's post, IF this is an Erfurt artillery, they have only one date stamped on the chamber: 1914! If the date is not there, it doesn't matter whether there is an artillery sight or not, it is probably not a genuine Erfurt artillery luger!

It does have the sight by the chamber and I sent Jerry some pics of it as I have no idea how to post them here. Thanks guys.

Your pistol does seem to be an Artillery from the sight on the barrel. It looks to be heavily reblued.
Does the serial# on the bottom of the barrel match the frame serial?
If the barrel & frame# match then the date has been scrubbed off.

I have asked a moderator, Ed Tinker to post your photo's .

Thanks, Jerry

Stock lug ground down...

Rick says there is no serial # on the underside of the barrel...There is no sight on the rear toggle..

Could be a made up gun? The aluminum bottom mag looks Danish or Mexican. The finish almost looks like an East German dip.

Thanks for posting pics ED!!!

Jerry Burney

The artillery barrel and its rear sight appear to be 1920's or later add ons. You will note that the rear sight does not have a fine tune screw which ALL artillery Lugers up to 1917 did have. All this in addition to the many points of finish and marking the the members have posted above. It is simply a shooter artillery at best given the condition.

The date could well have been ground off the chamber top, it's hard to tell. The two Germany stamps are a give away that this piece was exported from Germany after WW1 probably for the US market. The other changes, such as ground off stock lug could have been done in the US for fear of violating the short barrel rifle law. Hopefully this artillery luger was priced in the shooter category, certainly it's not a collector's piece.

Rick;

I think that is a real interesting piece. I wish it could talk. As pointed out the "Germany" stamps make it most interesting. I might point out that if the exact history of the piece could be known and if it is a rework for export to the US in the '20s it would be a much more valuable part of overall Luger history then the most pristine 1938 S/42 (IMHO).
Problem is, no one will probably ever know for sure and any halfway competent gunsmith today could reproduce one quite like it (though chances are REAL good he wouldn't grind the stock lug off, making that a solid and almost irrefutable factor in dating it).

If you are going to keep some of your Lugers as examples of one of the most exotic an memerable handguns ever made, I would suggest you keep this one. It is almost living history.

If not, get a really good magazine for it and go out and have fun.

The opinions expressed herein are most likely NOT shared by many Luger collectors...LOL

Major Gary Adkison (USA_RET)

Boy am I ever glad I found this Luger site/forum. I learned a lot and thank you all much for the replys.
I found some notes dad made about this and the other Lugers. We bought 5 lugers, a Colt SAA and a 44 Ruger Blackhawk for $849 in 1981 at insurance salvage auction. Some were stolen recovery and others had been damaged by house fire. The only things I knew about Lugers back then was that dad had brought one back from the war and they had some value. We split the cost and I took a 1914 dated one and had it reblued because of smoke damage to it. So, I know nothing about the past history of these prior to 1981. None of them are real pristine collecters condition execpt for maybe the Mauser one dad brought back and of course could never part with it anyway. Thanks again guys.

The side plate has also clearly been re numbered

Is there a notch-relief cut machined into the top-front of the receiver to allow the front sight to fully descend? What is the mark stamped into the left side of the center toggle piece?

--Dwight