A bit of clarificaiton to my original posting and question.
I think I am clear on the fact that any "pentagon" shaped C/M proofs should not be "floating". This covers the regular Navy production from 1906 through 1917 (or 1918 is one is brave...).
As can be demonstrated by the following photos :
But Chuck Whittaker shows four(4) early Navy lugers (# 51, # 79, # 342, and # 461) on his web site (in the Navy-Accessories section) that are of the "three-lobe" C/M proof and all seem to be "floating" with # 51 showing the least amount of "float".
Are the 3-lobe C/M variants accepted to have this "floating" stamp...which implies (at least in my mind) that the stamp was done with two separate stamps and not one integral stamp...since the amount of vertical "float" seems to vary amongst pistols # 51, # 79, # 342, and # 461.
# 136 is also shown, but it is of the pentagon (early type) C/M proof style...and appears to be out-of-squence if compared to the 3-lobed serialled numbers.
Also, are any other early 1904 Navies known to be out there...that is earlier than # 51 ? (remembering that # 48 was a more recent gunsmith-created piece and not DWM-made). If other early 1904 Navies exist, do they have the 3-lobe C/M proofs or do they have the pentagon-shaped C/M proofs ?
Sorry to be long-winded and rambling...just trying to get this right in my mind... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />
Regards,
Pete... <img border="0" alt="[typing]" title="" src="graemlins/yltype.gif" />