1920 dwm

[Don M]

Patrick, you have a very interesting gun. As stated above, it was reissued to the police after WWI and received the 1920 government (police) property stamp. Dave is correct in identifying the marking S.Ma.I.K.35. as being from the Schupo of the Marienwerder district --- specifically the command stationed in Elbing (Ma.I.). The K. is a little uncertain but, in the early 1920s, this command used letters to designate Hundertschaften (companies) and one other example of a K. from this unit is listed in HWIS Table 11-7.

The unit marking has been canceled and it was not replaced with S.Wpr.I. which was specified for this unit in the 1932 marking order. It is quite possible that the gun was surplused before that date and ultimately reissued to a Gemeindepolizei unit in the mid-1930s. Many of these smaller-city police did not mark their pistols and all unit marking of police weapons ceased in 1937. It probably received a sear safety but no mag safety sometime from about 1935 on, by which time mag safeties had been deemed a bad idea.

The barrel is definitely a replacement. It has an E/33 Simson proof and the number 2 on the bottom, the latter indicating manufacture by Simson in 1922. The Berlin Police Armory had purchased a number of these barrels and used them in reworking police P08s and LP08s from about 1928 onward. I suspect the rebarreling occured when the pistol was reissued in the mid-1930s. Does the barrel have the stamp PTV or TP (superimposed) over and eagle on the right side?

The pistol probably remained in police service through WWII.