Early 9 mm Commercial on Proxibid

[Ron Wood]

Originally Posted by Dwight Gruber

...I will note that there is no such thing as a "1914 commercial."
--Dwight

How about 1913 Commercial, with and without grip safety?

[Dwight Gruber]

Originally Posted by Ron Wood

How about 1913 Commercial, with and without grip safety?

Ron,

I have an aversion to dated commercial collector designations. They carry no evolutionary information relative to their official origins, e.g. New Model Parabellum vs. "1906"--the actual DWM blueprint designation is "Selbstlade Pistole 1904"; they frequently mislead a collector with erroneous date information, e.g. 1902 carbine, 1902 fat barrel, 1914 commercial, '23 commercial; and they tend to proliferate wildly, e.g. 1914 commercial, Bill Reupke's 1916 commercial designation based on the inception of the rebated sear bar, and Aarron Davis's wildly inflated variation list, etc.

In the commercial database I have found it necessary to create a simple distinction between P08s with and without stock lug: 08C designates non-stock lug pistols; P08 designates pistols with stock lugs. This is made clear in the database key.

To your actual question, "grip safety P08 commercial" works just fine as it avoids a date and encompasses the examples both with and without stock lugs.

--Dwight

[Dwight Gruber]

Originally Posted by Ron Wood

How about 1913 Commercial, with and without grip safety?

Ron,

I went back to some source material and reminded myself of some data. The dating in this commercial range is dependent on the August 1913 order which mandates the stock lug in all P08 production; and the institution of the flat recoil spring well by 1915. From the limited reporting in hand, one cannot say with confidence whether these pistols were made in 1913 or 1914, with a slight bias toward the possibility of 1914.

Under the circumstances, "grip-safety P08 commercial" seems to be the most comprehensive collector designation.

--Dwight


Edit: Strike all of this. I checked commercial navy sn 71406 (six pistols after the last grip safety entry, 437 pistols before the first flat recoil spring well entry); it has a spur in the recoil spring well. This confidently places the grip safety pistol production in 1914.


I still stand by "grip safety P08 commercial", because the grip safety pistols include both stock lug and no-stock-lug examples.