During the 1920s and 1930s Germany was subjected to the Treaty of Versailles, following WW1. This treaty forbade Germany to have anything more than just a basic military structure and severely limited the production of military equipment.
Rather than put up with it, Germany introduced a coding system which allowed manufacturers to produce their equipment under disguise. When Germany started ignoring the treaty after 1934, the coding system was retained and expanded in order to camoflage (and protect) the manufacturers by giving them basically meaningless codes, so that a product could not be traced back to a manufacturer to easily. In 1934 and 1935 the production dates were also still coded with letters (G and K), a system which had been in use during the years before as well. This coding system was dropped in 1936, when the 'S' was the planned year code.
Mauser worked under the codes S/42, 42, Byf and SVW.
A very good book on the subject has been written by Michael Heidler ("Deutsche Fertigungskennzeichen"), which is published in 2 languages, German and English.
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