[quote]Originally posted by Jimbo:
<strong>I have never seen the suffix stamped on the barrel. What Lugers have you seen where the suffix is stamped on the barrel?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Of my Lugers which have frame number suffixes, my 1917 LP-08 barrel does, and my 1918 LP-08 (with mismatched barrel) does also. My S/42 and my U-block Police do not.
The 1910 instructions and amendments (Gortz & Bryans, pp111-114) for marking P-08s specifies only the serial number on the barrel, oddly, the text does not mention serial numbers on the frame. The attached illustrations, however, do show the frame with serial number and suffix on the front, but only the number sans suffix on the barrel.
The letter suffix itself is dealt with in note 2 at the end of the instructions. This is the instruction which deals with the number sequences, and specifies that the sequence letter is to be applied below the pistol numbers on the frame and on the magazine.
A browse through Kenyon and Still is frustrating and inconclusive; Kenyon does not show the underside of the guns, and Still does only to demonstrate some non-standard feature.
Nonetheless, Imperial Lugers shows a picture on page 43 of a military-style serial number with a letter suffix on the barrel. In Weimar Lugers guns can be found with corresponding barrel number suffixes on pp. 58, 150, 239, and 272 (one of these is a U-block police, so much for my own sample); and without corresponding suffixes on pp.66, 138, 210, and 212 (I don't have Third Reich Lugers).
Its beginning to look like the answer to the original question is, no, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason...
--Dwight
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