Bill M. Notes:
"..Mauser had the K-dates for 1934 and the G-dates for 1935 and according to production estimates, started 1936 with a chamber date. There is the normal production assembly transition period, but not a intermix or overlap of the G-date code and the 1936 four digit Lugers..."..
Hi Bill...
Yours is a terrific question/comment (as you probably guessed
)! On the "letter code" versus the "diget" - Krieghoff's certainly are not that clean in their "breaks" - as apparently Mauser was with a definite block changeover as you note.
While Kenyon calls the "S" code on HK's the "1935 Year Code" (inferring a 1935 production date - pp. 318-322 "Lugers at Random"), at the same time - Gibson refers to it as the "1936" (See his Synthesis). (as an FYI - Jan Still defers to Gibson's production dates in his "Third Reich Lugers".)
So, if you subscribe to Gibson's view - then yes, letters were intermixed with "digits" for the same production year. If Kenyon is correct, then the "S" was the code for denoting the 1935 production HK Lugers - and then the answer would be "no", letters and digits would not be intermixed in 1936 - but two different chamber letters were used in the same year by HK ("G" and "S" which certainly doesn't make sense either!!)???
However, all seem to agree on the sequence of the chamber marking - "G", followed by "S", followed by "36", followed by "1936".
As you know - Gibson was fairly adamant (based on the serial number ranges and the total HK's made during these years), that in fact the "S" was a 1936 production Luger. If that is true - then your comment of "So isn't Krieghoff unique with this over lapping of codes and digits." would be true as well... However, if Kenyon is correct ("S" is 1935 manufacture) - then HK had both the "G" and the later "S" dates in the same year - but didn't mix codes and digits - as all "1936" production would either be marked "36" or "1936" on HK Lugers...
Thoughts? Comments?? (BTW: Great thread!!!)