new here, hope for some help
 

hope this post makes sense, just signed up. i guess as these men from ww2 pass on. more lugers will show up. just found 1 yesterday. dwm with black holster. i never saw that before. but i know very little about these. 1920, what intrigued me is its #, 2 digits. when i look at book it is 1 of first 10 made. should i look harder at this gun? supposed to see second 1 today. mans son who has them knows nothing about guns. said he has 3. from talk. i think third is p38. i am not collector. any help i would be grateful for.

Hi Greg,

Welcome to the forum. WW1 Lugers were manufactured in blocks of 10,000, starting with 1-9,999, then 1-9,999, letter suffix "A", then "B" etc. for each year of manufature

Does your serial number have a letter suffix? If not, it would have been made in the first number block of the year on the gun's chamber.

Is the "1920" on your chamber alone, or with what looks like another, earlier date? If ther are two "dates", then the "1920" is not a date but a Wiemar Goverment property code.

Welcome Greg! :thumbup:

It is pretty much essential that you post pictures of anything you wish help with. Lugers especially. Take close-up pics of all numbers, letters, graphics, full side views, make sure you go over the entire pistol with a light and magnifying glass...Many numbers are small and easy to miss...

Areas to inspect are: Chamber; underside of barrel near frame; front of frame; front & rear gripstraps; and top of toggletrain. Bottom of magazines; rear of holsters.

Hopefully, these Lugers you will be looking at have been stored for quite a while, not shot or exposed to the elements. :)

will try to look at second gun today and post pics and more info. it has only 1920, and in front of trigger 7.3. what is this?

My $.02 is that it's a .30 cal Commercial. Pretty expensive to shoot, compared to the 9mm. It IS a Luger however. If ammo were plentiful, I'd rather shoot a .30 cal vs a 9mm for accuracy. They don't seem to hold their value as well as a 9mm variant. NOT an expert here, YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary).

Hi Greg, and welcome.

As Doug mentions, there is nothing particularly special or valuable about having a low numeric serial number on most Lugers.

When you take your pictures, don't use the camera's flash. Take them using a tripod and the self timer (to keep it steady) in natural shaded light outdoors. The color rendition and finish appearance will be more accurate in the photos...

Marc