Hi All,
1906 Navy 1st Alt. #5539a first appeared in "World of Lugers" back in 1977 and looking at it now it's apparent that it has "had a lot of work done", as they say in Hollywood. It has been refinished, somewhat haphazardly, the barrel has either been crowned or relined, (it's hard to tell which from the poor quality photos), new grips have been fitted and numbered to match, and it has a fake matching magazine.
If that wasn't enough the sear bar has been "relieved" to the later 1916 configuration. I'm somewhat uneasy about this conversion which seems to have been achieved by exchanging the sear bar with a shorter one from a 1908 or later gun with a face that slopes North West while the existing safety bar has a face that slopes North East. It may work, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.
In the absence of good photos I can't make a judgement about the barrel, but the grips are definitely new replacements, flat topped threes in the numbers are a sure sign as are the spurious Crown/M inspection marks.
The magazine has numbers that are too small, and then, of course, there are those flat topped threes!
Norm
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