[Maestro]

..lastly, i think this is a well written article for those that want to learn more regarding "engraved" Lugers by Klaus Leibnitz called "Collecting engraved Luger Pistols or caveat emptor!" www.leibnitz-online.de/resources/Faked_Luger_Pistols_17.09.04-1.pdf‎
here's a few excerpts:

Collecting engraved Luger Pistols or caveat emptor !
by Klaus Leibnitz
In the last years decorated Luger pistols have appeared on the market, mainly in the US,
but also in Europe and they all appear to be forgeries. This does not mean that the pistols
themselves are forgeries, but it looks as if the engraving or decoration had been done
many years later in order to increase the value of these guns. The following paper tries to
approach the problem of increasing the value of old military weapons by decorating them
from an analytical point of view. After having done this, the fakes are clearly shown for
what they really are, old service pistols nicely made up.
What is called Luger pistol here in this paper refers to the gun which , in Europe, is also
known as the Parabellum Pistole1 or Pistole 08.2
1. The problem of faked weaponry is not a recent one. It is as old as people collect, for a
multitude of reasons, arms and armour. Also, the problem is not only confined to Europe
exclusively, but appears in old Japan, in Persia and the Ottoman Empire, and later in the
US as well.
The reasons for this were not for monetary gain alone. The nimbus attached to a sword
blade by Masamune,3 Muramasa4 et al automatically did transfer itself to the new owner,
who rose in status as an effect of such ownership.
The same holds true to sword blades made by Azzad Ullah of Isphahan, whose blades
were imitated in very large quantities, some of them of such a high quality that it is even
nowadays a problem to separate the real from the fake. As it is, there are so many swords
in existence bearing the Azzad Ullah seal, that he would have to be more than 200 years
old to have produced that many blades.5
In Europe of yore, the problem was a different one. Old weapons were mainly kept in
arsenals, armouries and gun rooms of the noble families and there they were mainly kept
for sentimental reasons (i.e. this was the sword with which our ancestor slew the dragon,
the famous robber NN etc.) The problem started when, during the 18th and 19th century
many an armoury of a noble house, which was impoverished in the course of the
Napoleonic wars and the following revolutions and upheavals, was sold and their
treasures became available and were purchased mainly by rich British and American
1 The term Parabellum Pistole ( from the Latin phrase for war) was derived from the telegraphic address of
the manufacturer DWM
2 This meant the year in which the gun was officially accepted by the Imperial Armed Forces as a service
pistol by an Imperial Cabinet Order.
3 Muramasa was a 11th century Japanese sword smith considered in Japan to have been the best of his craft
4 Masamune of Ise, one of the top Japanese swordsmiths who produced superiour blades which however
were considered unlucky.
5 See G.C. Stone’s Glossary.......