Nice K-Date photos...
 

Nice K-date photos on a web-site...

http://www.lmd-militaria.com/page41.html

Regards,

Pete... <img src="graemlins/yltype.gif" border="0" alt="[typing]" />

Interesting numbering system. Amazing there is only one surviving Luger in this range. <img src="graemlins/yltype.gif" border="0" alt="[typing]" />

That's neat, but all of the books I've seen say 1 - 10000.

Drool.

Jimbo, Please check your private posts.

The 1 is not lined up with the 0's. I would be highly suspect !! Of the millions and millions of Lugers and P38's made why is this the only luger with a 5 digit number?? (Let's remember a-z WWI and WWII...) P'38's are no exception to this rule and the P38 on his site has the last 0 off line with the stamping machine. Some think, on P38's that the stamping machine reverted to 0000 after 9999, if the person using the machine missed it, they would destroy the frame or perhaps add a 1 to keep the frame?? It could also be an outright fake with someone stamping an extra O. The web site has one photo of the serial number which is not enough to judge. If you look at the P38 with the serial number on the slide and frame you can clearly see the extra 0 added. Only my opinion.... Also, a dang shame if someone added any extra numbers to a K date. Again my opinion but the gun looks refinished.

So I am ready for the jury to convict me..........

Mark

P.S. Check my web site http://www.p38guns.com , under construction... and yes, I also have a bunch of Lugers.

In the October issue of The Gun Report Charles Kenyon has the second part of an article entitled "Luger Rarities of the 1920's". In the article he mentions the military serial procedure which was to number the pistols with one to four digits up through 9999 and then reverting back to 1 and adding an alpha suffix. Apparently he subscribes to the school of thought that only four digits were normally used.

I am a bit confused...(usual state of affairs...) :

In Charlie Kenyon's book, Lugers At Random, on page 35; there is shown a nice 1937 Mauser S/42 code, serialled 10000 g. But I know the photos were taken back in 1968-69...

Who is corect, here, as to numbers including or not including the number "10000" ?

Regards,

Pete... <img src="graemlins/yltype.gif" border="0" alt="[typing]" />

Pete, I knew I saw a photo of a Mauser with SN 10000 and looked for over an hour last night for it. I'm not losing my mind afterall.

Thanks for finding it. Pete, you da' man!

In the same article Kenyon also has changed his mind about the 1920 Commercial and 1923 Commercial designation even though this is mentioned repeatedly in his book L@R. He explains that DWM picked up at approximately serial number 76100 for the commercial Lugers manufactured late in 1918 and had reached serial number 96000 by mid 1920. Apparently DWM received a military contract for Lugers which were chamber dated 1920 and 1921 and were serial numbered in the military fashion of ns, a, and b letter suffix.
He then puts forth the theory that DWM jumped to the letter suffix i on the commercial pistols as the letter i is the 9th letter of the alphabet and the commercial range was in the 90,000 range, and DWM did not want to use a six digit serial number due to limited space on the frame. This had been discussed by collectors for years, but was finally put in print when Jan Still brought out his Weimar Luger book.
The 1920 and 1923 Commercial designation has been used so long that it has become the only way that we recognize the 5 digit commercials and the 4 digit with alpha suffix serial number. Dealers continue to use it for this reason, just as the "Double Date" has become a part of our description of Reichswehr property marked Lugers.

That is interesting Johnny, another indication that books are not always right!

Many authors later disprove theories they had or have believed.

Thanks for the info!

Thanks Johnny for the interesing insight and update.

Jimbo

Hello Johnny,

Please check your Private Message box...I would love to get a copy of this Gun Report article, if not too much trouble...

I will even offer a steak dinner in the deal, the first time we might meet in person some day.

You can ask Ron Wood about this...we had great steaks in Tulsa last weekend...

Regards,

Pete... <img src="graemlins/yltype.gif" border="0" alt="[typing]" />

Over on the P-38 forum is a thread on a P-38 with a serial number of 10000 plus a suffix letter. The thread is "Interesting CYQ" and is, I believe, the same P-38 mentioned in the link provided in the first message of this thread.

I posted on the P-38 forum that I'm unaware of any Imperial era Lugers in the military series of serial numbers that goes to 10000. Then I mentioned the Mauser Luger with serial number 10000g and the thought that both Lugers and P-38 pistols would have been numbered according to military directives. I'm not aware of any such directive. That is not, of course, proof of anything except that we don't have written proof of serial numbers going to 10000.

Looking closely at the pictures of the P-38 with serial number 10000 f, I'm struck by the quality of the finish and smoothness of the machining. CYQ P-38's are noted for their extremely rough machining and this one doesn't display that quality. Also, the final "0" in the slide serial number is off-set, suggesting it was stamped by hand. Finally, the frame serial number just doesn't look "right" as the final "0" is larger than the ones that preceed it.

As for the "K" date Luger, I'm not up to par on Mauser production but, IIRC, Mauser picked up production where BKIW/DWM left off and that wasn't at serial number 1 without a suffix. As no suffix letter is mentioned by the owner, I have to assume that he's suggesting that Mauser began Luger production in the "K" date series at 1 without a suffix letter. I don't have my reference books handy at the moment so I'll have to check that when I get home.

Perhaps MauserLuger can shed some light on the serial range of "K" date Lugers.

At the moment, I'm not convinced that either is correct. But, I'm not closed minded on the issue and I'd like to hear what others think.

Doubs,
Mauser picked up production right where DWM/BKIW left off. DWM was in the u letter suffix block, and Mauser started production in the v letter suffix block. This was virtually all commercial production, and when Mauser started production of the K Date in 1934 they did start with no letter suffix. K Date production was low and only went into the early a letter suffix block, where the G Date production picked up. Mauser continued production of the P08 by simply starting production in the letter suffix block where the previous year had left off rather than starting over at the beginning of the alphabet every year.

To Doubs: Early Spreewerke P.38's had very nice finishes, generally. There was some inconsistency but the very rough finishes didn't come into play until the later suffixes. I have cyq serial #820 and the finish, though worn some, is as good as any Walther made at the same time, maybe somewhat better.

As I mentioned on my web site, Warren Buxton personally inspected and took the pictures of the 10000f example. I trust Warren's assessment of a P.38 as to originality.

Just wanted to welcome you to the Lugerforum Leon...

As you can imagine, there are also many P-38 enthusiasts here, but we generally discuss them on our sister website P38forum.com

To MarkC: All that have examined the 10000 K date and the 10000f cyq P.38 feel that the numbering machine had only 4 digits and went from 9999 to 0000, then the 1 was added. On both examples the "0"'s are stamped a consistent depth and the "1" is stamped slightly deeper.

To your question about all of the Lugers produced with only 1 10000 example, another reply mentions a 1937 10000 numbered Luger and it is pictured in Kenyon's book. My question to you is, with the "millions and millions" of Lugers and P.38's made, have you seen many serial # 1's? How about serial # 2's?

For Walther P.38 production they started the numbering over from 1 every year. That means there should be a lot more # 1 Walther P.38's than # 1 P.38's or Lugers made by Mauser or Spreewerke but I have only heard of one # 1 gun, a Walther 480 code P.38. There are 3 or possibly 4 known 10000 examples. In Buxton Vol. II he pictures a svw45 P.38 with a serial number of 10000e. If that gun is honest that makes 4.

Johnny Peppers, thanks for the Mauser information. I was aware of the serial numbers/suffix letters spanning the years but not certain that "K" date Lugers began at serial number 1. It appears that a 10000 "K" date without suffix letter would be correct. That makes two known Mauser Lugers with a 10000 serial number.

Leon DeSpain, thank you for your response. If Warren Buxton is satisfied that your cyq is correct, that's authoritative enough for me. I didn't know that Spreewerks' early production was that well finished so I learned a couple of things today.

Leon DeSpain and the other member of the forum....

My only question is to why the Germans ended at 10000? We all know the Germans are efficeint, why would they have a stamping machine with more than 4 digits and not use the extra room for a series of guns to follow the extra sequence, 10001, 10002, etc. Also, some of the guns mentioned in this thread have a letter suffix.

Example, if the 10000e or f guns are correct there should be a number of guns (thousands) with the 1xxxx numbers followed by a letter. Granted the 1 numbered guns are rare because they are the begining of a seperate date/series designation of guns... but why would they end at 10000? Seems a waste of serial numbers and tooling to me. I have no proof... so should I not even mention this logic?

If the theory of 5 digit guns were correct, shouldn't we see more 5 digit serial numbers with a letter suffix? How many Lugers do you guys own in the a-z blocks.....??? (Only 4 digit numbers of course) Based on what I know about German quality control, they would not waste an extra serial number block just to have guns that had serial numbers of 10000.

War time control was even more important than commercial serial numbers. It is my understanding that the 4 digit serial numbers with a letter were produced to prevent the allies from knowing exactly how many guns they were making, a four digit serial is much harder to figure out than a five, it was a code of sorts, unlike 1911A1's which just ran through their series of numbers into the millions.....

MarkC