[Ron Wood]

As Dwight has noted, this Luger is indeed a remarkable example, perhaps representing the last vestige of the Old Model Luger (toggle lock) and a precursor to the New Model (checkering pattern).

Dwight notes that “The toggle latch looks superficially like the style inletted into the 1904 transitional navy pistol”. I would depart from that observation slightly. The first photo below is the toggle latch on this gun. Although oddly slanted back (first photo), it has the 3-piece latch found on the Transitional 1903 French Test (second photo) rather than the 1-piece latch of the 1904 Transitional Navy (third photo). However, unlike the transitional 03 French and the 04 Navy with their 90º face checkering, the toggle knobs have 60º face checkering depicted in 1904 New Model blueprints, as Dwight has observed, and first encountered on the early “New Model” Navy. That would seem to place the creation of this very unique “prototype” concurrently with or just after the production of the transitional 1904 Navy and before the introduction of the New Model