Jack,
First welcome to the Forum.
There is a lot of help here and its relatively easy to tap. But.. although I will not harangue you about buying books, I must tell you that photos are important, if not indispensable, to us providing assistance to you.
So.. your gun. Well, you know it is a Model P.08 military issue sidearm and in 1941 was standard issue to German Forces. It was made in Oberndorf at the Mauser facility.
Now as to serial number. Are you sure it is 3877?? Is there no scriptic suffix letter under the serial number on the front of the frame??
The serial number of a Model P.08 is made up of the number plus suffix or no suffix; and according to most purists the chamber date or code. That is the unique identifier for a model P.08. This is important because there were about 130,000 P.08s made in 1941, a little over 10,000 per month. If you gun has no suffix, it was made late in the year November to December time frame.
Also around the ns block of 10,000 guns the inspector changed from Eagle 655 Eagle 655 to Eagle 655 Eagle 135.
But you should know that there were about 11-12 other guns marked 41 byf that also used 3877 as the suffixes ranged from the o-block through the alphabet to the b-block.
So you can see that if we had pictures of the right side of the receiver and the front of the frame where the inspector proofs and serial number respectively are shown, it would answer a lot of questions about when the gun was made.
In any case, I hope this helps.
John
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