Philosophical - do you OWN the gun, or are the Steward in current POSSESSION of the gun.
If the gun is as left the factory I would tend to think of you as the current Steward of a piece of history.
Many thousands of Lugers were made, and some have had a hard life.
So the question being is every surviving Luger a piece of history, on that basis most of the contents of a landfill are historical.
If the gun is not completely original then the history is flawed anyway and subtle restoration/refinishing to restore it closer to its original appearance would be reasonable stewardship. I do not think an export stamp already compromised would be missed.
I do have a '70's Mauser and it is a thing of beauty. I also have a '13 DMW which has been refinished - badly - at some time in the past and am thinking of cleaning the blue off and re-strawing the straw parts.
Oh, and can one of the Moderators please correct the subject line spelling, pretty please
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