1908 Commercial-Army Luger

[Ron Wood]

I donâ??t think there is any reason to believe production of the 1908 Commercial stopped around 1910. A silly little thing like an impending war would not deter DWM from making a buck or two in the commercial market. Plus, officers were required to purchase their own sidearms so there had to be a source for them to tap. I strongly suspect DWM produced 1908-pattern commercial pieces right up until the time they started cranking out the 1913/14 commercial examples, perhaps even a little beyond. My 1908 Commercial Army is serial numbered 69879. I have a "1913 Commercial" numbered 71247, and a "1914 Commercial" numbered 73650, so you can see that the transition occurred in a very close serial number range. I suspect all three were produced in 1913.

Still in â??Imperial Lugersâ?� (my favorite volume) indicates in his discussion of the 1908 Commercial Army that there were a few 1914-dated Army Lugers lacking stock lugs that had the same triple C/X inspectorsâ?? marks. I feel very fortunate to have an example of each variation. I looked long and hard to find them. The 1914-dated example came up out of Mexico and has gold Mexican eagle emblems set into each grip. I looked at it in a pawnshop display case for several years (probably 10 or more), but never asked to look at it. Finally one day I was on a break from jury duty so I asked them to take it out of the case. I was dumbfounded to see the 1914 date on a 1908 pattern Luger and the C/X inspectorsâ?? marks. I bought it on the spot. I was tempted to replace the grips until I looked and discovered they were original and numbered to the gun. They still reside on that Luger.