Artillery Luger with "9" grips

I have this gun, and I'm curious as to the origin of the engraved "9" in the grips, since I thought most Military Lugers were 9mm anyway. The grips sure seem to be original, but perhaps I'm easily fooled. Any information would be appreciated.




http://photoasa.com/disk2/3348/1624/...r_1916_9mm.jpg

[Wolfgang Pfeifer]

Hello John,

I had asked the same question about my red 9 in March of this year. Tom Heller answered my post on 3/22/01. He wrote:


Wolf, my information on the so called "Red Nine" LP08s is that when the first 60K 9mm brooms (C96s in Europe) were built by Mauser in 1916 for the Imperial army, they were not marked "9" on the grips. Much confusion resulted in the trenches as the army had just received 50K c96s in 1915 in 7.63mm. Therefore, an instruction went out to the field armour's to mark the grips of these early 9mm with the big red 9. Obviously some confusuion reulted, as quite a few LP08s were also marked, and perhaps anything else in 9mm. That is why the size of the 9s on these brooms under S/N 61K will vary greatly, and I have also owned some that were not marked at all. These were NOT FACTORY APPLIED.


I hope this will help you, and again my thanks to Tom Heller.

John, Also a note of caution, I know of quite a few phony "Red Nine" branded grips. Generally the originals done in the field, with be quite crude. The one in your photo looks to perfect to be real. Just my opinon.

i have some photos of "red 9" in a german book. they all are looking like this one and are all done very well. the reason why some lugers (i only know DWM-lugers) were branded (so it's told here in germany) is, because the gun-smithes thought DWM means "Deutsche Waffenfabriken Mauser", but the order to brand a red 9 was given only for the "Mauser" (C 96).

Deiter, I agree that the Red Nine on your LPO8 does appear to be the same size and style as the factory applied one on the C96 Mauser. That's why I feel that it is incorrect. Any WW1 applied "9" on the grips of an LPO8, would have been crudely done in the field by mistake by a unit armouror.

i think you could be right.

I'd still like to find out the origin of these guns, since I'm not the only one that has one of these. The grips sure look original, they're sure not current reproductions.

[mauro]

Dear John,

I'm writing a book about Luger Artillery, from Imperial Model to 1985 commemorative Mauser Model.

Please let me know if I can use your red nine picture in my book?

Any other picture about your artillery is very appreciate.

Thank you


Mauro.

email: m.baudino@libero.it