marking on '36 S/42

[Gary_3]

Hi... On a 1936 S/42 I own,matching,under the serial # (789#)on the front of the frame under the barrel, there is a small script letter either "a" or "o", I cannot tell which, but with two squiggly lines coming out of it on either side of an oval. What is the significance of this mark? Is it common? Does it mark an interesting variation?

As I do not at present own any luger books that would aid in the identification of this mark, I thought I would ask you here. I recently saw a 1937 S/42, on one of the gun auction sites, with a script "ne" in the same place that was identfied as a Werkschutz gun, which raised the question in my mind about the marking on my gun.


Thanks,

Gary

Lugers were only made till they reached the 10,000 mark on military made guns. Then the next batch was 1a, 1000a etc., of course going through the alphabet if the run was made that far, so you will run across 8341 r and the like.


So, for insurance purposes and legal purposes your serial number should be Mauser 8341r and 1936 (chamber date) and barrel length. (S/42 is of course for Mauser).


Although the alphabet of yours sounds a bit odd, the letters were the stylized German script and should be a letter.


Ed

[Johnny Peppers]

The 1936 S/42 was made from the f thru p suffix letter blocks, so more than likely you are seeing an o.

[Gary_3]

Yes, thanks. That makes sense. It looks like an "o" in script to me.

Gary

The script letter, although often hard to read, is part of the serial number. It is often overlooked by people noting a luger serial number but is usually the most important part of the serial number as it indicates early versus late production and the customer. Letter blocks such as v were sometimes reserved for police and commercial contract pistols. I have often seen sellers offer a "low serial number luger" because it had three numerical digits. A shop in Bellevue Nebraska a few years back advertised a very low serial number luger that, on inspection of the contract range, turned out to be one of the last pistols of the contract.