Ballpark value on this Luger

[Kyrie]

Jasta2 asks, “Seeing all numbers are matching, and you feel it made from salvage parts, would the DDR take the time to renumber all the parts to make it matching?”, and this suggests we may want to review the purpose behind numbering the small parts of a Luger to the full serial number as found on the Luger frame.

The partial serial numbers applied to small parts was not decorative; their existence was of deadly import.

The Luger pistol pre-dates interchangeable parts. Each part added to a Luger during its manufacture, and during any subsequent maintenance that required a part to be replaced, was hand fitted to all the other parts with which it had to function. Sometimes the level of effort to hand fit a part was negligible to non-existent, sometimes it was a real chore. Whatever the level of effort that effort was required to produce a functional and reliable weapon.

The upshot of this lack of interchangeable parts is a part fitted to one Luger may cause malfunctions in another Luger if it is simply swapped in without being fitted to the other Luger. Thus it was of critical import to be able to tell, at a glance, that all of the parts being used to assemble a Luger that had been disassembled actually belonged to the frame/barrel extension to which they had been fitted.

It was standard practice in the German (all eras) manufacture and repair of Lugers to insure all the small parts were numbered to the Luger in which they had been fitted. If the replacement part was salvage from some other, unrepairable, Luger then the original number on that part was either removed of struck through and a new number matching the last two digits of the Luger to which the salvaged part was being added was applied.

This is the story behind the importance of the term “matching” to both collector and shooter. The collector prizes and pays a premium for a factory/depot original Luger. The shooter has a limited interest in any Luger hat doesn’t have all original and fitted parts, as such guns may not function well – or at all.

To be continued....