1914 DWM Question
 

I just found a 1914 DWM Artillery for sale and it has a small red 9 on the grip and another 9 in reverse on the other grip. I have seen the 9 before but much larger. Would this be correct? What does the 9 stand fore anyway? I will try and post some pictures of this later. Thanks Don

Hello Don,
The red nine Luger Artilleries appeared starting from the December 1917. According to a Kriegsministerium directive, all Arty Lugers and Mauser C96 should be marked with a red nine on the grips to avoid mistakes with ammunition. In fact in that period were available both the Mauser C96 in 9mm and in 7,63mm. The Kriegsministerium directive mentioned only the Mauser C96 pistol but it was applied also to the Luger Arty.
If you had my book, you can find a few pictures of red nine Arty at page 58.
I hope this helps.
Ciao
Mauro

Is the pistol dated 1914? If so, check the grips for the last twp digits of the serial number, they may not be original. While small "9"s are uncommon, they are seen on C96's and therefore might be found on an LP08.

What I believe is rare or odd, is to find any LP08other than a 1917 DWM marked with red (or black) nines.

The gun shop had two Arty's, one 1918 for $1695.00 and this 1914 for $1495.00. The tag said scarce on the 1918. Isn't the 1914 more scarce? When I went back to get this one the 1918 was gone. I'm going to try and post some pic.s later if I can figure out how. i would like to get some more input on this. Thanks Guys

Don, if the 1914 is a DWM it is the most scarce of all Artilleries save the 1936 Siamese. If the 1914 is an Erfurt, then my guess is that the 1914 is more common than the 1918. This is based on my own observations though Jan Still estimates 23000 of the Erfurt versus 25000 of the 1918. Also I should note that Jan Still further estimates only 5000 1914 DWM LP08's.

Hello,I have a double dated 1914 /1920 ERFURT should thier be a 9 on inside of grip I found none.

Henry Bucki, no there should not be a 9 on the inside or the outside of your grip. The Erfurt 1914/1920 is an interesting varition. Is it marked on either the front or rear grip strap? If it is we would be interested in the markings. It would also be nice to see photos of the pistol.

http://picserver.student.utwente.nl/...picserver.jpeg
http://picserver.student.utwente.nl/...picserver.jpeg

We got this at a military show the man wanted 1800 he took 1700 i was happy

Sometimes I think that the 1915 artillery is harder to find than the 1914 Erfurt. For a 1914 DWM artillery, Jan Stills says that it must be in the serial range of 161 to 1995a. There has been discussions on this forum as to whether or not this is totally true. But I figure that Jan knows more than me so I stick to his serial number range religiously. That is the reason that I passed on a 1914 DWM artillery which had a serial number of 71.
Big Norm

I am going to catch holy heck from other members of this forum, but my gut feelings are that "Red Nine" grips are only appropriate for commercial Lugers. My reasoning is that since most commercial Lugers were in 30 cal, the "Red Nine" grips were warnings to civilians that this is a 9mm gun. My same thought process holds also for magazines that have "Cal 9mm" stamped on them instead of the serial number.
Big Norm

Big Norm, I couldn't disagree more. I have two "nines" a red and a black. The red is 1917 DWM 6974 g and all matching and all original. The black nine is 1917 DWM 6360 l all matching original parts except the left grip which is a poor attempt to duplicate the "nine". The latter is my shooter and was reblued by Ted Green. Ted may have photos of it.

As a further note, all C96 red nines I have seen were military proofed. Is this consistent with others' experiance?

Hi,

There has been much confusion on the big '9', placed on the exterior of the grips of Artillery lugers.

A 1917 directive was indeed issued to mark all 'long Mauser pistols with stock attachment in 9mm calibre' with a red 9 to prevent people from firing the wrong ammo from the wrong gun. As both the 7.63 Mauser and the 9mm Mauser C96 were in use at the same time.

It is believed that some arsenals interpreted the Artillery lugers a 'long Mauser pistols' and marked them as well.

As this order was issued by the military, I'd expect the '9' to be present on some, but not all military Artilly lugers. Certainly not on commercial ones.

Hello Big Norm,
As I mentioned before, the Kriegsministerium ordered that all the Mauser pistols were marked with a red nine on the grips to avoid confusion with ammunitions. This is not an hypothesis, this is a fact. A copy of this document is available at page 277 of Gortzâ??s book â??Die Pistole 08â?�.
Mr. Gortz stressed the fact that arsenals confused the DWM acronyms as Deutschen Waffenwabrik Mauser with Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken.
For that, also the Artillery Lugers were marked.
I would like to highlight that in the aforementioned document is not written that only the Luger Artilleries made in the 1917 must be marked. The fact that it is more common to find Luger Artilleries with red 9 grips made in 1916-17 is only an opportunity reasons. In my understanding this directive was applied starting from the last production, maybe still available in the arsenal, and then to the other pistols, when possible. The fact that a few months later the Kriegsministerium directive (dated December the 14th 1917) the WWI ended, justifies that only a little subset of LP08 is red nine marked. But assuming that a 1914 LP08 was sent to the arsenal for maintenance purposes can happen that also this pistol was red nine marked. This is only my opinion but I guess it is very realistic.
Ciao

Well, I said that I was going to catch heck for my thoughts on the "Red Nine" Luger grips. I have only one set and it isn't on any of my artilleries. But I suppose that if I were to find a late 1916 or early 1917 artillery with the same last two digits as the grips then I could correctly mount that set on that gun. Of course, if that gun should happen to already have matching last two numbers on its grips, I would be foolish to replace the original grips.

But now that our intelligent and respected Luger bretheren from the Neatherlands and Italy have straightened out the "Red Nine" grip question, how about the "Cal 9mm" magazine question? Where these magazines designated only for commercial or (maybe) contract Lugers?
Big Norm

I believe the "Cal 9mm" magazine is correct for these Lugers:
1902 American Eagle and Commercial
1906 Navy
1906 American Eagle and Commercial
1906 Russian
I suspect it was also available for the rather scarce 1902 Carbine in 9mm.

Don, I'd be careful with respect to the 1914 DWM LPO8. There may be good reason that another customer went for the more expensive 1918 Artillery. Carefully check the proofing and serial number on the barrel and there should be a relief cut at the very front of the receiver for the rear sight (should be numbered in 3 places) to rest. TH

Ok so I looked dumb on my previous comments. But I got excellent responses for some of the best on this forum. Thank you one and all. Now I have to copy and paste the responses to my word processor for future reference. Again, thanks to everyone.
Big Norm

Hey Big Norm,

When are you going to publish this "reference" book you have been adding to for several years? I'll bet you have some very interesting facts compiled in one place...

Hi guys - i'm new to the forum, so please excuse me if I don't follow procedures correctly (new to computers and lists, etc.) I recently met an older gentleman who has a 1917 DWM artillary for sale. He has had it for years and now wants to sell it. The luger is extremely dirty and grimy, but it does have matching #'s and is 90+% blue and straw under all that grime. The real problem is the trigger plate is raised away from the frame at one end, causing (i believe) the gun not to fire when the trigger is pulled. I've never disassembled a luger before, so I don't know if some other part underneath was put in wrong, if it's just more grime inside...or, if there is a more serious problem and I should pass on it. I have 48 hrs to decide before it does to the local gunshop. oh...and he's only asking $900 for it. Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated. Much Thanks - Garry S (Please feel free to Email me direct in case I mess this up some more - Wizzod@AOL.com