1918 dwm

[JSF01]

Well it was probably a mistake to do, but I happened to see a Luger at a gun show that was priced just with in my range and bought it. Why was it a mistake, because while it was cheaper than any other Luger I have seen, with my luck it still means I probably paid too much for it. I am not here to complain about that because while I might be an idiot for buying it, I had always wanted one, and now I have one so I am happy. Thats all that really matters in the end.

Because I like the historical aspect of firearms I have been looking up information about my new firearm. Thanks to the information on these forums most of my questions have already been answered. I do have two questions that I have not been able to find the answer to yet, and they may fall into the unknowable mystery category but here goes.

First



The letters "YKN" are stamped on top and the side of the pistol. I have asked on another forum what it means and the best guess they had is it was some former owners initials. While that is definitely a possibility it just sems odd to me that some one would put thier initials on it twice like that. There is also the fact that it would be some one who's name would begin with the letter "Y" which is very rare. I can not even think of a first name that starts with "Y" of the top of my head. Since I figure these forums would be filled with people that are experts on these pistols here would be the best place to ask. So are there any other likely possibilities on what those markings indicate.

Second


The barrel of this Luger. When I bought it I was told some previous owner had swaped out the barrel which is why it was cheaper then other Lugers i have seen. Now when I bought it I had assumed simply that the previous owner who did this found a longer Luger barrel and just swaped it. Now That I have been looking at all sorts of pictures of Lugers, I discovered that I can not find any other Luger with a similar barrel. That begs the question what type of barrel is on my Luger? Is there a set of Lugers with barrels like mine that I have just been unable to find; Does the barrel belong to a completely different firearm; or Did that previous owner have a custom barrel made for it(which would seem to be a lot of effort into something that would greatly devalue the firearm. I guess if it was done a real long time ago the lugar might not have had any real value to it.)

Another minor interesting thing is the barrel seems to have two thin witness markings that just happed to line up to bracket the larger single witness marking on the reciever.