Unusual side plate.

[Doug]

This is on my reworked 1920 police with two matching mags one nickel and one blue both have aluminum bottoms. I find it odd that it has the two dots after the number. It was a commercial side plate at one time as it is marked "54" underneath. Magazine safety has been removed and filled in but the notch was not blued to cover. Take down lever is also commercially numbered. Ideas???????????




http://www.cityscape.net/~dgeorge/978.JPG

I can't explain the 2 "dots" on the sideplate. I don't think that they relate to hardness marks due to the location and the fact that there are two of them togeather. Often part of the magazine saftey spring will remain in the cut out, giving the appearence that it has been filled in. If you take the left off you can look underneath the frame side panel and see if part of this spring remains. I have seen many ( maybe 5-7) WWI eara Police modified Lugers that have been period re-blued (rust style). On most of these there are tell-tell pits evident here and there under the re-blue. I believe that probably most of the WWI era Lugers that went to the Weimar/Nazi Police were rust reblued when they were transferred or maybe had the saftey mods done. Other things would often happen as well such has the firing pin flutes would be added, new mags, grips replaced, rear toggle axel would be numbered, any mis-matched parts would be replace by fitted/gaged re-numbered parts, somtimes barrels would be replaced. I often see replaced barrels (period jobs) on Army re-works, I seems funny that few police Lugers have replace barrels but many I have seen have horrible bores and I think that most came back this way...another Police were less concerned about bore condition than the Army.

[Big Norm]