Hi Frank H.,
A decent matching shooter luger Artillery in No. Calif. can easily run from $ 1000 to $ 1200. This is a luger with original matching parts and finish at 60-70%.
Then to have an artist like Thor do a restoration would add another $ 450-500 or so...so you would be at $ 1450 to $ 1700...if this gun is a Gale Morgan restoration that would have cost you more if you paid for it...(I hear Gale's work can run over $ 1000...).
So you paid a bit more ($ 300 to $500) if you had started with your own shooter LP-08 and then sought out a professional restoration artist.
Nevertheless, you ended up with a very nice Artillery that you should enjoy for years and shoot from time to time...the bit of extra money you paid might just be the "lesson learned" factor most of us run into with our first few luger purchases...
You could have done worse. I know of a LF member that bought nearly 20 or so lugers when he first started out and before he realized all were "messed with" as his educational curve ramped up...(and no, this fellow is not me...
).
p.s. As Dwight's side-by-side photos of the trigger plates show, your plate has had a lot more metal removed from the flat part of the "island" on the side plate than the comparison, original photo posted by Dwight. This might indicate that part of your side plate had lots of wear and or pitting that could only be removed by removal of some of the metal of the "island"...
Regards,
Pete... <img border="0" alt="[typing]" title="" src="graemlins/yltype.gif" />