US Test: Bannerman Sale Records

[Ron Wood]

Clark,
I assume you are looking for the actual government documents from which the known serial numbers were derived. I believe both Mike Reese and Scott Meadows observed archived records when writing their works on the Test Lugers.

Reese published rather poor copies of several of the documents and Meadows transcribed the documents in his book. Reese's book is only reference that establishes the "accepted" range. He states in his seminal work “1900 Luger U.S. Test Trials” that “Evidence received from the Bureau of Accounting sets the serial number range of the 1,000 test pieces at 6099-7098”. That is the only statement I can find that specifically cites a reference for the serial number range. Oddly enough, with all the documentation reproduced by Reese in his book, this vital piece of evidence is not presented. Without being too judgmental (I think), this reduces this “evidence”, valid or not, to hearsay.

So far we only have Reese’s unsubstantiated range to go by, and there is no evidence that this range contains contiguous serial numbers. If we are to accept his work as absolute, we will have to rationalize a couple of other inconsistencies in his account. In his section on “Sale, Receipt and Allocation” he lists “5 – Each commanding officer of the 185 troops of cavalry”, which would amount to 925 weapons. Later he gives a detailed listing of the cavalry troops that received the trial Lugers, and lo and behold, they only account for 180 troops! He discounts the missing 25 Lugers by a footnote that states “Plus 100 pistols to Springfield for exclusive tests”. This 100 would include the 10 pieces to West Point, 65 pieces to artillery units, and the single weapon issued to LTC Marion P. Mans in California, leaving 24 wandering around Springfield somewhere. This is not to debunk Reese’s entire work, but only serves to illustrate that when it comes to Test Trial Lugers, there is always some ambiguity involved. He resorted to some “guesstimation” to make his numbers come out right.

The only 5 weapons reported by serial number for one unit were those in the report of 2nd Lt Palmer of the 7th Cavalry stationed in Cuba. These numbers were 6167, 6361, 6541, 6601 and 6602. Meadows lists 4 other serial numbers, 6196, 6282, 6885 and 7018 as being in Ordnance Department records which I believe were maintenance/repair records.

The only other documented serial numbers are from the Bannerman purchase of 1910 (which includes two serial numbers, 7108 and 7147, outside of the upper limit of 7100 generally publicized). I have been tracking serial numbers and references for around 30 years and have not found any additional information.