42 Chamber Date Banner Commercial

[mrerick]

The analysis that Joop and Don did in "The Mauser Parabellum" would seem to indicate that these commercial Luger components came off the same line as those producing the Military contract Lugers, without a lot of consistency in the chamber dates and their actual production.

I have two Mauser commercial banner Lugers. One with a "42" chamber date that has a low serial in the "G" block, and the one I pictured above from the "W" block normally associated with commercial Lugers. I think that the "G" block banner may have been made after the war for direct sale to occupying US troops, but the ones in the "U", "V", and "W" blocks may not consistently run with sequential chamber dates.