Pain in the kiester rookie

[John Sabato]

Willy, first of all welcome to the Lugerforum... and congrats on your new Luger.

If you visit our homepage by clicking on the "lugerforum site" link at the bottom of this page, you will find a section on the black menu on the left that is Technical information. On that page you will find Luger Identification sheets, which will guide you through the identification process. When you have all the answers to the questions on that sheet, provide the information here and we can help you determine your exact make and model.

You can also upload photos of the top, and both sides of your Luger (the upload link is at the top of the page) and we can provide a much better evaluation. Just make sure the photos are in sharp focus in good light.

From the information you have already provided, All I can tell you is that your Luger was made in 1938. The part on top that looks like a cross is the extractor. And in 1938, it is possible that due to wartime manufacturing, the bluing tank wasn't quite hot enough and it produced the plum color you see instead of blue on that part. The top of the toggle will likely be marked with either an "S/42" or just "S42" or just a "42" and this will indicate that your pistol was produced by the Mauser factory.

If the toggle is marked with a logo that includes an anchor and the letters HK, then the gun could be a Kriefhoff, and be very valuable.

With a production date of 1938, any other logo on the toggle would likely mean that the guns was made from spare parts or had been repaired with old parts.

The full serial number will be just above the trigger guard on the front of the frame. It will likely be 4 digits with a small alphabetical character under it in a script font. This letter is part of the serial number.

On the bottom of the barrel will also be a number like 8,81 through 8,84 which is the bore diameter in millimeters.

There should be two small numbers stamped into the majority of the rest of the parts, and this will be the last two digits of the serial number of the gun they were manufactured for... if they all match the last two numbers of the serial number of this Luger, then you have an all matching gun.

There is no way to determine if your gun has been refinished since it left the factory without at least seeing photos of it, or examining it in person.

One of our California members will likely volunteer and agree to meet with you to see the gun in person and give you a first hand account of what you have...

If the gun has never been refinished, and the parts are all matching it will be considered a collectors item and you would not be advised to shoot it, because any parts breakage would cut the collector value at least in half.

Your Luger could be worth anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to as many as several thousands depending on how rare it is. Try to post photos if you can...

There is much to be learned about Lugers on this site... enjoy yourself reading about them.