How to tell police use?

[JimD]

I see Lugers advertised as police reworks. What are the tell-tale signs of police use?

Police lugers usually have the sear safety installed. There may be other tell tale mods but I think this is the most encountered. If
If you do a search for "sear safety" it will explain in greater detail.

[FNorm]

There are different acceptance stamps or proofs. The sear safety didn't come into use until (Help Old guys?) 1933? After that most police Lugers had it. Most military didn't.

FN

[Edward Tinker]

You will find police guns without sear safeties, but never find a military with a sear safety.

The only way to tell if it is a police and there isn't a sear safety is either a police unit marking or during the nazi times you might see an eagle L or the like.

As said above, read the FAQ and it talks about sear and magazine safeties.

FAQ
http://forum.lugerforum.com/showthread.php?t=13121

Ed

[JimD]

Thanks, all.

[FNorm]

Ed,

This got me to wondering, and I can't find anything on it. Were the police reworks of the Weimar Era retrofitted with the sear safety? All? Most?

Thanks,
FN

[Edward Tinker]

FN, me and Dwight Gruber are in the tail end of writing a book on police lugers, so I can answer many of your questions

In short;

1. Many WW1 and earlier lugers ended up in storage and were released to the police. (Keep in mind that many police were not police as we know them...)

2. Many new made DWM went to the police, see Weimar Lugers by Jan Still; this was in the 1920's up to 1929 and early 30's before mauser took over luger production....

None of these lugers would have had a sear safety until

The Sear Safety was first implemented in 1933; here is a quote from Jan C. Still, Weimar Lugers;
…Prussian State Police Orders dated August 30, 1933, and almost certainly adopted later by the National Police (required the sear safety to be installed). Many also bear the magazine safety, which was introduced by the same orders.
The sear safety is held by a rivet at one end and on the opposite end bears a small pin that blocks the sear and prevents the discharge of a partly dissembled Luger. The sear safety was a police requirement introduced by Prussian State Police orders dated August 30, 1933. It was not a military requirement.

Magaine safeties were many times installed at the same time, but then required to be taken off.

After 1933 until around the early 1940's sear safeties were required to be put onto lugers, so those made after for police received them.

Ed

[Don M]

Grip strap markings are also key indicators of police use. My new book History Writ in Steel: German Police Markings 1900-1936 explains these in great detail.

[sheepherder]

Originally Posted by Edward Tinker

(Keep in mind that many police were not police as we know them...)

Ed -

Could you expound on this a bit???

[DavidJayUden]

Perhaps they were more like "community organizers"...
DJU

[policeluger]

They were more para military I believe is what Ed is trying to say....

[sheepherder]

If you want to read a good book about Germany in the 1st & 2nd WW's, get a copy of Len Deighton's "Winter: A Novel Of A Berlin Family"...

[Edward Tinker]

Originally Posted by policeluger

They were more para military I believe is what Ed is trying to say....

Yes, this is true; Don's book expounds on the subject and the book Dwight and I are about through with will discuss this a bit too.

Police as we know them in america is not how police in pre-ww2 were known and used. Much more of a military manner and in fact, many ex-military were brought together and used as "police" but were in reality military in many aspects, living in barracks, single, issued rifles, anti-tank weapons, etc.

Some were; the rural police is more like a police like we knew, while the city police was broken down into many "types" of police; protection police, city police, water police, and then some police duties that in america would not be handled by the police.



Ed

[DavidJayUden]

You mean like the Fashion Police?
JUST KIDDING.
DJU

[Don M]

More like recording births, deaths and marriages, inspecting building construction, etc., etc.