Ebay auction for Pamphlet

[Ron Wood]

Rich,
This is a good and valid question. Quite possibly it could have been for the AE. It would seem most logical to have it targeted at the Swiss since their initial purchase was significantly larger, both military and commercial, than the American market. The first “batch” of AE Lugers consisted of only about 200 guns, the known/recorded serial number range being 2002 to 2199. The Swiss acquisition, on the other hand, during that time frame was over ten times that amount. The next group of American Eagles did not occur until over 3000 serial numbers later. So on the face of things; it would seem that the first manual should have been in German.

It is obvious that the first English language manual was assembled from material on hand. The illustrations show the Type I safety (the AE Lugers had Type II) and the written information tends to draw from the earliest production (the parts breakdown speaks of a magazine that could be “disassembled”, a reference probably to the earliest “flat button” magazine which had a removable screw-in follower button). All of that material pre-dates the American Eagle but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t produced for the AE. There is no doubt in my mind that if there was a manual provided with the U.S. Test Trials Lugers, it would have been this one.