Tim,
you should like your Navy Luger. Except for the side plate, its legit. Your comments about the double dates may very well be valid. We will really never know.
On your question about the magazine, you have to remember the time at which this gun was used. At the end of WW1, this was just another of a million or more pistols laying around. Many times these guns had their magazines removed and the magazine was then thrown on one stack and the pistol was thrown on another heap. All that later mattered was that the gun had a workable magazine, any magazine. Except for souviner hunting American GI's and maybe Brits and Aussies, nobody cared. The gun was not a collectible thing like it is now. Many weapons were thrown over board from ships bringing the soldiers home because they were threatened with court marshel if they got caught bringing them home. And while ALL these soldiers wanted to keep their trophies, they wanted to go home more.
Somewhere in my collection of pictures, I have an actual picture of a 3-4 foot high stack of small arm weapons that were about to be destroyed. Its now unbelievable the things that you can make out in that stack. This picture was posted on the old Luger forum a long time ago.
Big Norm
|