Xavier, you’re probably blowing smoke up your backside if you really think those M carvings are pre-capture. Those defiling letters fit into the same crude style of all the other bring-backs I’ve seen that a vet carved his initial on. Also, notice that the carving on the left grip has obviously less patina and crud in it than the rest of the grip. Looks like some American chopped it after the pistol had seen 7-8 years of hard use. It also wasn’t uncommon for captured P.08s to have a string of owners (poker games, debts, stealing, trades, etc.) before a final owner. To be blunt, those M carvings make that pistol look like hell. So if I were you, I’d send those grips to Hugh to be re-checkered, he might be able to machine out the M’s. (No collector value now anyway to start.) With cool looking re-checkered grips, and a massive cleaning, you also might be able to fake out non-collectors into thinking it’s a collector’s piece. I used to have the stock for a G33/40 that had the same style of M carved into the bolt handle cut-out that your Luger has on its grips. Made me wonder for a sec.
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