[saxman]

You guys won't believe the debacle that trade turned out to be. The HP turned out to be an FEG fake, with 'Fabrique Nationale....' on the slide. The dealer was shocked, and agreed to take the 'HP' back and pay me for the Luger, which he already had a buyer for. Now, I already had a very nice FEG PJK-9HP and there's nothing wrong with them, but at some point a number of them were brought in with FEG serial numbers but slides with FN markings - watch out for these - serial numbers are typically a letter, a space, then five digits, like 'G 22344' or 'B 43567'. So, I met the seller at a gun show he was doing and got my money. Later, I had to put $50 more with it but got a beautiful 1969 FN HP in near-mint condition with Browning pouch and all. So, as the man said, 'It's been a long, strange trip...' Yes, I've been checking in here every so often and have posted a few replies. I did learn a LOT about Lugers here when I was trying to figure mine out. It was pretty much a 'mutt', made out of at least three donor guns. The crazy thing was, the barrel had the same serial number but a different suffix. Most parts were force-matched and a previous owner had scratched some of his data on the frame flat behind the side plate. I got $200 more than I gave for it a few years ago, so I was good with that, considering what I finally got with the money. Really funny how things work out sometimes...