Need identification help, please

[Big Norm]

John,
I agree. I cannot figure why anyone would grind off the chamber date since it is usually put in there so deep. Grinding might compromise the integrity of the guns metal at that point. Not only that, but why only the chamber date and nothing else.

I think the estimate that this could probably be a 1917 artillery in spite of the fact that most of the artilleries of that transition year for front and rear sights were either adjustible and/or fixed. Even though there can be any combination of the sights on a 1917, I still instictively think of fixed sights as belonging to the 1918's.

More importantly John, where were you during the last Chantilly gun show? I went there hoping that I would finally meet you but you were nowhere to be seen. While the show was kinda a disappointment, I did get to meet TomA, which made it worthwhile.

What also made it worthwhile was going to the NRA's weapons museum. There were 13 Lugers on display there and, I think, 2 Borchardts. Thats a pretty good attendance for a relatively modern pistol of foreign make. It was hard to tell much about the Lugers but one of the P08's was a 1936 Kreighoff. The glare off of the glass made it difficult to really see what the other Lugers really were. But there was one navy, one carbine and quite a few artilleries. Jan Still did not have any of his books for sale in the souvenier room and there wasn't a Gibson either. But there were "Lugers at Random" books for sale. Gotta talk to Jan and Gibby about that.
It was scary pulling into the parking lot with my motor home. But after bumping and pushing a few cars around a bit with my motor home, I was able to get out of it. Some of the cars in the parking lot were just those little puddle jumper foreign jobies and I was able to just drive over the top of those thingies. (We do that in Detroit). The hamburgers in the cafeteria tasted pretty good too. The indoor shooting range was closed so I didn't get to see that thingy.
Big Norm