My New Luger...

[Ron Wood]

It is interesting that in the Bender book, the M2 holster is not displayed with an M2 Luger! Likewise, the GNR holster is not displayed with a GNR! Both are displayed with a 4" barrel Luger with a stock lug and no grip safety.

Herb,
The Costanzo figure on page 355 (also shown and explained as proof #70 on page176) is not exactly the same as found in the frame well of the M2 Portuguese. Nor does the M2 proof look like the flaming bomb proof that Costanzo illustrates as proof #118 on page 192 and attributes to the US ordnance (the M2 proof has only two "flames" separated at the top as opposed to three co-joined flames of the ordnance proof). Costanzo does not have an illustration of the marking that is found in the M2 frame well. I might hazard a guess that the Luger that was used as an example to illustrate proof #70 may have had a poorly or partially struck proof and so his illustrator attempted to clean it up and #70 is the result. It also could be that #70 is another proof mark entirely that is correctly illustrated and Costanzo just doesn't have an illustration of the type of proof mark found on the M2. The proof is as clearly shown, double stamped, in the top example posted by P.08 (nice photo by the way).

The shield proof is an early commercial DWM barrel proof. The fact that it shows up in the frame well of a 1920 Navy is, I believe, just another example as cited by Lugerdoc of the recycling of an earlier expensive die used as a later inspectors mark. Since the M2 Portuguese was a military contract in a separate contract serial number block, I would suspect that the presence of a commercial proof on the barrel of an M2 is an example of using up an existing stock of overrun barrels, much like the example of Swiss proofed barrels found on the earliest 1900 American Eagles.