Hi,
There has been much confusion on the big '9', placed on the exterior of the grips of Artillery lugers.
A 1917 directive was indeed issued to mark all 'long Mauser pistols with stock attachment in 9mm calibre' with a red 9 to prevent people from firing the wrong ammo from the wrong gun. As both the 7.63 Mauser and the 9mm Mauser C96 were in use at the same time.
It is believed that some arsenals interpreted the Artillery lugers a 'long Mauser pistols' and marked them as well.
As this order was issued by the military, I'd expect the '9' to be present on some, but not all military Artilly lugers. Certainly not on commercial ones.
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