Please assess my first P.08
 

Hello everyone!

I just bought my first Luger on Sunday. I’ve been an avid gun-enthusiast since I was a kid. I’m a collector, regular shooter, NRA pistol instructor, and amateur gunsmith. I bought my first book on Lugers when I was 12 and spent most of the family beach vacation that summer in the hotel room reading it instead of playing in the ocean or at the pool.

Now, I am certain everyone reading will wince when I admit that this purchase was an impulse buy and that I knew from the beginning that I was overpaying. But, it was a unique circumstance:

I had planned a nice family afternoon, but needed to stop by a friend’s gun shop to pick up a holster and case. As he was ringing me up, I looked down and saw the Luger in the display case under his register. I immediately dismissed it as a Stoeger .22, but a few seconds later, my unconscious said, “WAIT! That ain’t a Stoeger!” and I stopped, mid-sentence to give it a closer look. I think I pointed and stammered.

My friend took it out of the case and handed it to me. It looked nice, felt nice, and I noticed all the immediately visible numbers matched (except for the magazine). It had no price tag on it, so I asked, “How much are you asking for it”? To which my friend tersely responded, “It’s not for sale.” and took it away from me. You would have thought I had asked a very rude question about his wife. Then he mumbled, “Well, actually, it belongs to my dad, so if he wanted to sell it, I guess he could.”

At that exact moment, his father was walking by and reiterated, “It’s not for sale” without even pausing on his way to the office.

Just then, my Vietnamese wife said, “Eddie, I talk to you.”

She pulled me across the store, and said, “I see how you look at that one. You have a sweat on your head. If you want, you buy!”

Now, my wife counts every nickel that comes and goes. This was only the third time in our marriage where she actually urged me to buy something, and I knew from the second time, where I waited a day and she reneged (and I lost out on a fine Nazi-stamped FN High-Power), that this offer was only good for about an hour. To be fair, I explained to her that a Luger isn’t quite the same as the Gen. 4 Glock 19 she bought me for Christmas, but she was insistent: if I wanted it, buy it! So I walked back up to my friend and said (very debonaire), “Everything has a price. Seriously, what do you want for it”?

He looked very uncomfortable, but called his dad out of the office. It took a fair amount of convincing to get his dad to see I was serious and tell me a number. The number was very, very high (I watch online auctions pretty regularly), so I presented a more reasonable counter-offer (still high). A good bit of discussion followed. Finally, I offered to pay cash -crisp bills, and he said he would meet me half-way (very high).

My wife and I talked about it. She agreed. We went to the nearest ATM, and came back.

As I raised my hand to shake my friend’s father’s hand (something we still do here in the South to seal a deal), he said, “Oh!” and bent down, opened a cabinet, and pulled out several items. He said, “Here’s the holster that came with it, an extra magazine, and two boxes of circa 1940’s/1950’s ammo” A bit puzzled, I shook his hand and walked away with an unexpected holster, extra magazine, stamped Luger tool, and two boxes of unopened, ancient, red and yellow boxes of Winchester “9 M/M LUGER” ammo.

Now, this has been a pretty long story, and I left out the bits about where they got it from and its alleged history. I’ve taken 46 pics of the pistol, holster, and magazines from every angle -assembled and stripped. I did use the Mac auto-enhance tool, which increases contrast and definition (thus showing flaws the human eye can’t possibly see, but making the color slightly off), and the pictures were taken at high magnification.

Not being a Luger expert, but having extensive experience with other semi-autos, I must say that I am thoroughly impressed by how tight the pistol is. When disassembling, nothing just falls out. Everything fits tightly and moves smoothly. It seems to operate perfectly. The only thing I have done is field-strip it and gently clean with super-high quality S&W lubricant.

Here are some questions I hope the users of this forum can help me with:

Does this pistol fall into the “collector” or “shooter” category? (I am not particularly interested in a dollar value, I just want to know if I get the pleasure of shooting it occasionally at the range, or if it needs to stay locked away.)

What is the deal with the completely unstamped firing pin? As I understand it, all military Lugers have matching stamped firing pins, but, while this one looks exactly like the S/42 pins I have researched online, and is the only component to have any real (still surface) accumulation of rust, I haven’t found any information on unstamped, period firing pins. I assume they are period replacements: i.e., Lt. Schmidt broke his firing pin in 1941 and got the quartermaster to order him a replacement.

What are all the numbers/symbols on the underside of the breach directly behind the barrel?

Does this appear to have been reblued? I have fair experience with pistols, as noted earlier, but I can only claim about an 80% surety that this one has not been reblued at some point: It has the expected holster-wear points and the back and front-strap are worn expectedly, but the bluing on the trigger, breech, barrel, and most of the frame look better than I would expect despite some surface rust. Thoughts?

What is the deal with the magazine that has an “S” at the top, and a “0/37” at the bottom?

I’ve taken a ton of high-res pictures. They can be viewed at my godaddy gallery at http://x.co/i68v

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks in advance,

Eddie

I'll leave evaluation of the finish to the experts here. The bore looks aweful nice for a refinish though. Very nice photo of the bore!

Very nice looking first Luger in any case! I believe the "S" is a Simson magazine. Nice rig!

Congratulations!

If the firing pin is all that doesn't match then I would say that you have good luck and bad luck. Good luck in that it's a keeper and bad luck in that you wouldn't want to destroy the value by breaking any matched parts.The firing pin can be purchased without too much trouble. No brainer, get yourself a shooter for the second gun.
Others more knowledgeable can place the value, for you.
Ciao
Jack

Welcome to the forum, and although your story is great, you didn't tell us anything about the luger.....

Date, markings etc.

Yes, I can go look at the photo's, but we prefer the pictures here.....


ed

The 'S' is a K date magazine, but looks renumbered to me....

Hi Eddie, Welcome to the forum and to Luger collecting! I agree with Ed with regard to that S marked magazine, and I too think it has been renumbered. That unnumbered firing pin is a replacement, very possibly, as you suggest, done by a unit armorer. The gun itself looks very nice, and the finish appears original to me. Regards, Norm

the link is now leading to an error. Here is the long address for the gallery: Luger

/here is hoping that works (I kinda suck at computers even though I use them every day).

Everything else is either stamped, 4900 or 00.

"Now, this has been a pretty long story, and I left out the bits about where they got it from and its alleged history"

Nice looking piece.

Yes plez tell us the story.

The S 0/37 mag is a K date.

The pistol does not appear re finished to me.

It falls into the collector catagory IMO.

Okay, here is the story (as stated this is all unverifiable and here-say):

The guy I bought the gun from was the father of a friend of mine. He owns a gun shop, is an NRA instructor also, and is a retired policeman (the friend, not his father). He isn’t just a random dealer at a gun show; he is someone I trust -we are both range officers at the same gun club.

I was told that this Luger was owned by an elderly, WWII vet who was a friend of his family. The vet had no intention of selling the gun, despite repeated offers. He claimed that he picked it up while recovering items: guns, ammunition, bodies, etc... after a battle. Rather than go through the proper channels to claim the gun as a “war prize,” he had heard stories of Privates who found Lugers, submitted the proper paperwork, and then found out the paperwork (and Luger) had vanished, so he discreetly slipped it into his personal effects. This is how it came to America, and is unstamped.

The elderly gentleman died recently and his son, who didn’t care anything about guns, inherited it. He promptly sold it to my friend’s father, who then put it on display (not for sale) in his son’s gun shop.

Now, this is a nice, even plausible, story. I am certain that my friend believes it. I’m not entirely sure, though. Here is my problem with the story: If this really was Lt. Schmidt’s Luger, and he died with it on his belt at the battle of [insert battle here], why do neither of the magazines match? What would Lt. Schmidt have done with the original magazines, and why would he be carrying two different ones from two different periods?

So, while I am certain my friend believes the story, and I wouldn’t want to bring up my reservations, seeing as how the previous owner was a friend of his family -call me a skeptic- I’m not completely convinced.

At any rate, it doesn’t affect my appreciation for the pistol at all. I’m sure I will tell my kids the story, maybe even with a few embellishments of my own (I’m really partial to the fictional Lt. Schmidt, for some reason -maybe it really was a Lt. Schmidt’s sidearm?).

Beautiful 1938 S/42. Bluing is original.The o37 mag is a K-Date mag that has been renumbered.
You did well.
Bob

The battlefield pick-up story is colorful, but I believe most collectible Lugers were not coming from that source. Most likely, it's surrendered by German after the war, or even captured in storage inventory, or imported from Europe in postwar era. That would explain their great shape. Oral story does not count in value anyway (good to hear though). The finish looks original and great in pictures.

Thank you all for your responses.

I have to say (and this is probably going to sound weird) that I am just a bit disappointed that the consensus so far seems to be "collector" rather than "shooter" because I am taking a friend to the range tomorrow and was looking for any excuse to put a few rounds through this. If my #1 gun-related wish was to own a Luger, my #2 wish would be to shoot one. But, I'm just an average Joe -not part of the "greatest generation," like my granddad- and potentially ruining something with solemn, historical significance, is something I don't feel worthy of risking.

Nice P08, I wouldn't shoot it either.

Eddie, Ed Tinker (one of the resident experts here) is gently trying to tell you to post your pics to the forum, not to an outside site. There are several reasons why, the main one being that quite a few of the other experts here work behind corporate firewalls that block outside sites such as YouTube, SmugMug, PhotoBucket, etc. Those are the people you want to evaluate your Luger. They may not have the time to go to another site and sort through the links to see your pics. They may not be able to visit your site at all.

This is why threads with attached pics get more comments from knowledgeable Luger aficionados...Although Vince posts to these threads as well... :D

(Hi Vince!) :bigbye:

Don't read too much ito the mags. being mismatched. It is so common that it probably happened frequently when issued, not necessarily after surrender. (Envision a group of soldiers shooting at an impromtu range, and all magazines, once empty, are given to the lowest ranking soldier (Private) present to re-charge. No one got the correct # back, but everyone got a loaded mag. that worked, so all were happy. Except said Private.
Anyway, most guns have a mismatched magazine.
Your gun is very nice and you should be proud.
dju

Also, from my understanding of procedures here, Lugers were the property of the unit, not the individual. Magazines may not have been stored in the pistol/holster when not in use. My unit(s) stored magazines in a big box and issued the first ones to hand. Keeping numbered magazines with the associated pistol may have been desirable but not necessarily strictly enforced. If one malfunctioned, it may have been replaced with one that worked, and the devil take the number!!! :evilgrin:

One can envision all sorts of instances where magazines may have been interchanged... :)

Very nice luger!! As the old saying goes "Buy the gun not the story" If you listen to most of the war trophy stories the only people we fought were SS Officers. Enjoy!! I would still put a few mag loads through it and then retire it.

"Eddie, Ed Tinker (one of the resident experts here) is gently trying to tell you to post your pics to the forum, not to an outside site"

https://cache.nebula.phx3.secureserv...c-58f2c4e81fe9

https://cache.nebula.phx3.secureserv...4-01c9149649c3

https://cache.nebula.phx3.secureserv...b-71dec9669fb4

https://cache.nebula.phx3.secureserv...6-b9bf3fc350de

https://cache.nebula.phx3.secureserv...f-d77c8cbdfa3a

I took 46 hi-res pics of everything I could think of, so if anyone is interested in a different angle or specific part, please let me know!