Marcus, I can think of any reason that the Government arsenal at Erfurt would want to back date any of their 1918 PO8 production. It's quite possible, that if some 1917 dated receivers were left over at the end of that year, that Erfurt would use them up in their early 1918 production. I'm quite confident that this luger would have been delivered to the military if completed before 11/11/18. Whether it was actully issued, is hard to say, but it must have been in good shape at the war's end and was marked for export to the US rather than being destroyed. TH
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