[Kyrie]

Hi Tom,


Military Artilleries differ from the common, run of the mill, four inch barreled Lugers thusly:


1) Eight inch barrel,


2) Tangent sight graduated from 100 to 800 meters, in 100 meter increments (the lowest setting of 50 meters is unmarked),


3) The rear tangent sight and/or front sight may or may not be "fine tune" adjustable (see the photos and narrative),


4) The front, top, of the barrel extension will have a "nibble" milled out to allow the rear sight to sit all the way down at its lowest adjustment,


5) There will be no rear sight on the last toggle link,


6) In rare cases the grip panels will be marked with a big "9", filled with red paint, and


7) Issue accessories may include a drum magazine, a board stock (or rarely a holster/stock - but this is more a commercial option), two or four spare (standard) magazines, and the leather to hold all this.


Commercial Artilleries are a different subject. By and large, Commercial Artilleries are identical to military Artilleries, save they will be commercially proofed and are sometimes encountered in 7.65 mm Parabellum rather than 9 mm Parabellum.


The exception to this are what collectors call the "1920 Commercial Artillery." These Artilleries may or may not have the tangent rear sight. Those without the tangent rear sight are technically not "Artilleries" at all, but collectors call them Artilleries to differentiate the 1920 Commercial Lugers with eight inch barrels from those with shorter barrels (these sometimes called "Navies" when found with a six inch barrel) or longer barrels (called by collectors "Long Barreled 1920 Commercials").


As you can see, when it comes to Lugers nothing is quite as simple as we'd like it [wry smile]. But I hope this helps some!


Best regards,


Kyrie