Quote:
Originally Posted by George Anderson
Given the lack of a stock lug as well as the retrofitted hold open, I am inclined to think it started out life as an '08 first military.
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George,
I think you are right on target concerning the frame; it’s from an old military Luger whose initial manufacture predated the requirement for a stock lug (or a hold open).
The frame survived, and was reused, with a mixture of new and other old (salvage) parts to create a new and saleable Luger. That’s the common definition of a 1920 Commercial Luger; new gun assembled from a mixture of new and old, salvaged, parts. See Kenyon, Still, et. al.. All this is old news.
The mostly Erfurt 1920 Commercial of which I posted photos a short while ago is another example of a common 1920 Commercial. That gun was mostly composed of Erfurt parts, a DMW barrel extension dated 1916, and a new (at the time) production 7.65 mmP barrel.
Someone recently remarked, either here on this forum or Jan’s forum, that 1920 Commercial Lugers get no respect. That’s true and always has been. 1920 Commercial variation Lugers command lower prices and there are fewer collectors who specialize in 1920 Commercials that in any other variation.
There are many reasons for that and I suspect the single largest reason is simply that 1920 Commercial variant Lugers either have no apparent provenance, or have so many apparent provenances that no one can place them in time or by purpose.
One of the most common complaints I’ve heard from collectors is they cannot tell the difference between a 1920 Commercial made by DWM in 1920 and a parts gun put together by some guy in his garage in Atlanta Georgia in 1975.
I’d not be surprised to find there were a number of collectors on this forum who believe this gun is a parts gun of recent vintage. If so, I’m not about to try and persuade them otherwise. The more people there are who cannot tell the difference between a 1920 Commercial and a parts gun the fewer people there will be bidding against me for the 1920 Commercial variants I’m bidding on
