It would be great to have some contacts in Bulgaria going through the archives there.
About the cartel agreement: One of the first lessons of historical research is to find out whether a particular item that exists today had the possibility to exist in the time frame it was claimed to come from.
With the Bulgarian/Russian luger, the same practice exists. If the cartel agreement between Steyr-Mannlicher and Loewe existed for pistols, then it would be very, very unlikely that any Parabellum pistol was sold to Steyr-Mannlicher controlled areas (like Bulgaria).
So we have established that:
-Mannlicher had the exclusive right to sell military rifles to Bulgaria and Rumania.
-Loewe group had the exclusive right to sell rifles to Serbia and Greece.
-The market for sporting/hunting rifles, pistols and revolvers was open for all players
Which means that
-There was a market for the Parabellum in Bulgaria at the time.
-Loewe/DWM was free to sell Parabellum pistols to any military organization in that country.
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