Need help on DWM 1918

[luscioman]

Here are the pictures you really want now and I think they speak for themselves in answering the mystery. I was incorrect when I said it was all original. However there is not any evidence of the frame having a cut in it.

[Don M]

Steve,

A cut in the frame would be indicative of a mag safety, not a sear safety. The mag safety idea was a bad one and many police units apparently ignored that part of the order and installed only sear safeties. The hole in the receiver that I indicated would show that a sear safety had been installed would be a vertical hole in the flange that sticks out of the left side of the receiver just above the sear bar. It would be just above the "85" in the first photo above.

[luscioman]

Those only are the only pieces that were replaced. I assume it would be possible that it had the safety and then it was replaced with the one seen above.

[Don M]

Steve,

I think we're talking past each other. The sear safety I'm referring to is an after-market addition and not the normal safety activitated by the thumb lever. Here is a top-down photo of a Luger that has had its sear safety removed. The hole on the right is where the rivet held the safety spring. There is a slot milled in the top edge of the side plate and there is another hole beneath it where the spring engaged when the side plate was removed. The purpose of this added safety was to prevent triggering the firing pin once the side plate was removed to field strip the gun. Without it, it is possible to discharge a chambered cartridge after removing the barrel and receiver from the frame. Apparently, it happened more often than the police thought acceptable.

[luscioman]

Sorry about the miscommunication here. I understand what your saying about the safety. I am saying since the sear is not original at one point it may have had the safety on it, then removed at some point later and the sear replaced.

[Don M]

Ed Tinker brought this pistol to my attention: http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/Vie...?Item=44574139. Here is a somewhat enhanced photo of the grip strap:


It looks like it was the rack mate of the one that is the subject of this thread, at least until one of them was captured by the Russians.

[luscioman]

Don are you able to figure out what were the crossed out letters are? I still cannot figure out what they are on mine

[Don M]

Steve,

The original marks as well as the cancellations on both pistols appear identical. It is pure speculation, but I'm beginning to think the marks could have been P.Rh. and that this stood for Polizeischule Rheinprovinz. You won't find a reference to a school with this name anywhere but we do know that a police school was opened in Bonn in 1926. This was about the date that the school names were changed from ones containing province names to ones containing the names of the cities in which they were located. Bonn was in Rheinprovinz (The Rhineland). Perhaps these pistols were initially stamped using the old naming convention and then restamped with the new.

Another point about the GunBroker pistol. The seller does not mention a letter suffix to the serial number (which I read as 8389 despite his reluctance to post the entire number) but the E/WaA66 and E/H proofs on the right side of the receiver indicate this is a 29 DWM that was manufactured in 1929 and would have an s, t or u suffix. This would mean that the speculative P.Rh.777. mark was stamped no earlier than 1929 and that, in The Rhineland at least, the old naming convention was still in use at that time. This is a bit later than I thought.

[John Sabato]

This photo has been enlarged, re-contrasted, and turned to negative greyscale to help bring out some of the shadows...

I definitely see the first stamping as "P. Rh." in a script font.

[Don M]

Way to go, John!