ERFURT Broken Crown Die
 

A question that has bothered me for decades, is most all Erfurts I have had the privilege to examine in my lifetime were stamped on the toggle with a broken crown like the photo example I have posted.

But I have seen a few where the crown was unbroken, and there doesn't seem to be any chronological sequence to this mystery...

Do any of our historians have a clue about the history on when the Erfurt toggle stamp die got broken, and replaced? And why they continued to use the broken die?

Speculation (in lieu of knowing the real story :eek: ) is perfectly welcome, but I would really like to know the real story if it has been documented.

Hi John,
There was a lengthy discussion on this very topic a few years ago on Jan Still's Forum, here's the link:
http://luger.gunboards.com/showthrea...oken+crown+die
Regards, Norm

John,
I have had the opposite experience - fewer "broken" than intact.
I just had a quick look at pictures of my 12 or so Erfurt lugers.
None of the ones before 1914 had a broken die. Some in 1917 and 1918 did, but not all- perhaps not even half.
The 1917 Erfurt in this recent thread is an example:

http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthre...ghlight=erfurt

When I get a chance I'll take down the date and serial numbers of all and see how they shake out.

Perhaps others could do the same?

The thread referenced above started down this track, but no summary was ever tabulated.

I do not assume that there was only "one" Erfurt toggle stamp over the years, but I would expect several (at least more than one)l were in use at any given time. JMHO

My 1917 Erfurt first 1/3 of the "g" block has the beginning of a broken line, not quite as far damaged as the one you showed John.

I believe that the "broken" crowns, like the Erfurt notched receivers appear sporadically simply due to a manufacturing practice called LI-FO. Last in, first out refers to the way in which components are pulled from their bin. Since the parts are all the same workers grab what's on top of the bin. Thus that which was most recently produced is grabbed before parts produced earlier.

1914 Erfurt
 

I have two 1914 Erfurt pistols- #4522 Crown is not broken - #2556a Artillery is broken

A very good thought George, and a well known concept for manufacturing... it is called Kanban (看板) (literally signboard or billboard in Chinese and Japanese) is an inventory scheduling system for manufacturing. That would have escaped my thinking on this issue for a long time. Toyota developed kanban to improve manufacturing efficiency. Kanban is one method to achieve Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing which reduces inventory on hand, and ties up less money on parts in storage.

In the factory where I was the Engineering Manager for a couple of years, certain parts used for assembly were manufactured in lots which varied in size based on last year's production.

For example, if we had an inventory history of using 100 parts in a month during last year, we would produce 100 parts plus a percentage based on what our sales were expected to be. When a Kanban inventory gets down the to reorder point, the next lot was produced and poured on top of the existing parts inventory so the parts at the bottom of the barrel might never get used for a very long time which would result in the practice you described.
:thumbup:

Thanks for your input.

There could also have been multiple work stations for die stamping the toggles and multiple dies in use at the factory.

We know that there were multiple sets of WaAmt inspection dies at Mauser later in WW-II.

Clearly this is a case of the toggles - if not the entire gun - being made someplace else, possibly even by another company!

:evilgrin::evilgrin::evilgrin::evilgrin:

I am certain they weren't made at the NAMBU factory though!:evilgrin: