Off of the top of my head, since I am away from home and my references, I am going to take a stab at the nomenclature being used here. Although the â??Lugerâ? is known in Europe as the â??Parabellumâ? (from the DWM Berlin telegraph address, and taken from the Latin expression â??Si vis pacem, parabellumâ?â?¦â?If you would have peace, [prepare] for warâ?) the German military designation is derived from the year the Luger was officially adopted for use. Therefore, the Navy standardized the Luger in 1904 and it was designated â??Pistole 04â?? or abbreviated P-04. Likewise, the acceptance by the German Army of the Luger in 1908 resulted in the designation of â??Pistole 08â?? or P-08. In 1914 when the â??Artilleryâ? Luger was adopted it was, as far as the German Army was concerned, just a long barreled P-08 i.e. â??Lange Pistol 08â?? or LP-08. So for the German military regardless of the year they were manufactured, all Navy Lugers are P-04 and all Army Lugers are P-08/LP-08. It is the collector community that came up with the model sub-variations depending on year that physical and/or mechanical changes were made in manufacturing.
Now letâ??s break down the popular collector terminology for the Navy Luger. The very early P-04s have been assigned the collector designation of â??Model 1903/04â??. The elimination of the toggle lock and the introduction of the coil mainspring and improved breechblock in 1906 give rise to the collector designation of â??Model 1906 Navyâ?? (not content with just a 1906 model designation, collectors further break this model down into â??First Issueâ??, â??First Issue Alteredâ??, and â??Second Issueâ?). In 1908, the grip safety was given the heave-ho and now we have the â??Model 1908 Navyâ??. Then in 1914 they started adding a chamber date, ergo the collector designation of â??Model 1914 Navyâ??. Bear in mind, all of these Navy Lugers are still â??P-04â? in military terms.
OK, letâ??s look at the Army side. As we already indicated, the Army started out with the Luger in 1908. These first 4â? barreled Army Lugers eliminated the hold-open device, the grip safety, and the stock lug found on the Navy Lugers. Collectors consider this to be the â??1908 Armyâ?? or â??1908 Militaryâ??. This model started out without a chamber date and the very first group had the proof/acceptance marks on the left side of the receiver, so collectors dubbed this version as the â??1908 First Issueâ?? model. Then in 1910 Erfurt started gearing up to produce the Luger so naturally the military decided that a date needed to be added and lo and behold the collector designation of â??1908 Datedâ?? was created. The Army realized that some of the features that they threw out as unnecessary or cost cutting werenâ??t such a good ideas so in 1913 they started revamping earlier pieces to add the hold-open back in and continue all subsequent manufacture to incorporate this feature. Somehow collectors didnâ??t feel it was necessary to give this change its own variation name. But in late 1913 the stock lug was reborn. Collectors werenâ??t too swift on the uptake in recognizing when this change occurred, so they dubbed this version the â??Model 1914â?? and that is what it has been ever since. But once again, from the military standpoint all of these are still P-08s
