unit marks on gripstrap?

[Don M]

This is a very interesting Luger with a very rare Schutzpolizei marking. The marking is definitely from the barracked Schupo Bereitschaft stationed at Osnabrück. This militarized unit contained only 267 men (HWIS p. 135) which is consistent with the weapon number 215. Understandably, very few of these markings exist. The fact that it has no sear or mag safeties is entirely consistent with the type of Schupo unit to which it was issued. It very probably was transferred to the Landespolizei and on to the military in 1934-36.

The pistol originally was an LP08 which was reworked sometime between 1927 and 1935 by the arsenal of the Polizeischule für Technik und Verkehr as evidenced by the PTV/eagle proof on the right side of the barrel. The barrel bears an eagle/33 acceptance associated with Simson and the number 4. These stamps strongly suggest the barrel was manufactured by Simson in 1924, purchased by the PTV and used by them to rework this pistol.

G.T., do you know the letter suffix of this pistol for my database? I would also greatly appreciate permission from you or the owner of the gun (whoever took the photo) to use the photo of the grip strap in a future publication.