History help 1916 Luger

[DonVoigt]

Originally Posted by 34SF

Can someone tell me what the under-case "i" or "l" stamp on the underside of the barrel means, please?

It is the "suffix" letter of the serial number, and is part of the serial number marking, strictly speaking.

Each year started with 1 for military lugers, went to 10000 without a suffix, then 1 to 10000 with "a", and so on down to "i" and in large production years even farther.

If the number/letter on the barrel is not the same as the number/letter on the front of the frame, it is mis-matched.
Small parts had only the last 2 digits of the number.

But then not all barrels had the suffix stamped, and some didn't even have the number applied.

Maybe you really should buy a book or read a lot of the old threads here.

Start with the stickys, there is a good one for newcomers to the
luger forum, they are at the top of the list of sub forums or in the New collector forum.