Jay,
Simply, military Lugers were made for use by military forces, either by government arms factories (Erfurt, Waffenfabrik Bern) or by contract with civilian arms factories (DWM, Simson, Mauser, Krieghoff).
Commercial Lugers were made for sales to the civilian market and export markets, primarily by DWM (occasional commercial examples can be found by Simson, Mauser, and Krieghoff).
Commercial Lugers are almost always recognized by the presence of civilian crown-over-B, c/U, c/G proof marks (before 1911) or c/N proof marks (after 1911). Single Crown/crown/U proofs are also civilian proofs.
Military Lugers are found with many different marks depending on who manufactured them, the year they were manufactured, and the military customer they were manufactured for. Military-marked Lugers which also have civilian proof marks are military surplus guns destined for commercial sale.
If you do a Forum search on "proof marks" you will find many discussion which cover the topic in much more detail.
When looking for your first Luger you might or might not care, depending on your purpose. If you are looking for a gun as a collection piece or representitive sample it might not make much difference to you.
If you are looking for a Luger to shoot, you should know that a large percentage of commmercial Lugers were chambered for .30 Luger. Though at one time this was a very popular cartridge, it is very difficult to find nowadays and costs roughly four times what it costs to shoot 9mm.
--Dwight
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