Stan,
To be a bit less glib, late in 1940 wood for pistol grips and gun stocks began to be in short supply in Germany. The army decided to accept plastic as an acceptable substitute material for P-08 grips. Evidence is that they began to appear very sporadically as early as 1940. Use of plastic for Luger grips began in ernest in 1941.
Black bakelite grips were assembled onto byf-41 and byf-42 Lugers on an as-available basis. There was no rhyme or reason to this, it was simply a matter of which grips were available on the assembly line at any given moment.
At the same time the Haenel Schmeisser company began to manufacture Luger magazines with black bakelite magazine bases. These were the standard magazines for Lugers in 1941-42.
Statisically there were many fewer byf-41/42 Lugers with plastic grips. Still, in "Third Reich Lugers", estimates that 20% of production wore these grips. To enhance the value of his sales stock, noted Luger dealer and collector Ralph Shattuck coined the term "Black Widow" to differentiate these plastic-gripped guns from the more common wood-gripped examples and to excite the imagination about their use.
There is no way to determine which Lugers originally had bakelite grips, and it is safe to say that the liklihood is strong that any given byf-41/42 "Black Widow" has had its grips applied in the past few decades*. The trade in original black bakelite Luger grips is thriving--originals bring a lot of money by themselves--and there is an active cottage industry forging these grips to artificially enhance a byf Luger's value.
*(This is not to say that there are not Lugers out there wearing original black bakelite grips. Without provenance there is no way to know.)
--Dwight
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