Safe/Loaded 1920 DWM

[Dwight Gruber]

After the end of WWI DWM went into a production hiatus. This was in response to the Interallied Military Control Commision's enforcement of the Treaty of Versailles, which forbade the production of military weapons.

This was intended as a punitive measure against DWM and other arms manufacturers, who the Commission wanted to force out of business. The regulations did not apply to the reworking of existing pistols however, and DWM stayed afloat by reworking of military pistols and selling them as commercial weapons, both in-country and internationally. These retained their military serial numbers, and often times their other military markings as well.

Across the Atlantic, Hans Tauscher (a German national) had been DWM's sole sales agent in the U.S. since 1909. When the US entered the War in 1917, all of Tauscher's holdings, including all of his inventory and DWM's patents, were seized by the U.S. Alien Property Custodian. In 1920 all of these holdings were sold to A.F. Stoeger & Co. who , after some legal maneuvers, became the exclusive US distrubitor of DWM pistols. Stoeger secured the trademark name "Luger" 1923.

In 1920 DWM re-started the production of new Luger pistols. These Commercial pistols continued the serial number series which had begun in 1901 with serial #1 and which by War's end had reached at least 74722, the 1914 Commercial Lugers.

The new production picked up between serial# 74722 and 74745. Collectors have traditionally called these Lugers 1923 Commercial; Jan Still has effectively demonstrated that a much more suitable designation for them is "1920 DWM". Guns were produced in 9mm destined for the German Police forces, and .30, suitable for domestic sale; a large percentage of them were destined for export to the United States.

In 1921 DWM produced a run of 2,000 pistols whose extractors were marked LOADED and whose thumb safetys were marked SAFE rather than GESICHERT. Although 1906 American Eagles commonly had extractors marked LOADED, the SAFE stamp was a new feature. These pistols are found between 89734 and 91531, very near the end of the 5-digit commercial serial number series. Jan Still, in "Weimar Lugers", suggests that these guns were produced as a contract order for Stoeger.

Presented here is DWM Safe/Loaded Commercial serial# 91339, entirely representitive of the variation.





Safe/Loaded Commercials are blank-chamber Lugers. Most of these guns were made with 3 3/4-inch barrels in .30, however there are Commercial Navy/6-in barrel, Commercial Artillery, and carbine-length barrel versions known.

The salient feature of this variation are the LOADED stamp on the extractor, and the SAFE thumb safety stamp. The other noteworthy mark on this Luger is the upright c/N commercial proof on the receiver. It appears that the 1919-1920 break in production is also the point at which DWM changed from the lazy to the upright c/N stamp on the left receiver, and indeed may be the only reliable way to differentiate a 1920 DWM from the previous commercial 1914 variants.






The pistol is numbered in the Commercial style, as expected. However, this pistol shows evidence that DWM's once-vaunted commercial production quality underwent a severe reduction at this time. The breechblock, front toggle, firing pin, receiver lug, holdopen, and grips of this gun are unnumbered. A small (and statistically inconclusive) survey of 1920 DWM suggests that one should expect to see these parts without numbers, with the exception perhaps of the breechblock.

1920 and 1921 dated Army and Police Lugers (4-digit serial# with suffix) manufactured at the same time, however, appear to have most of these parts numbered most of the time, except for firing pin and grips.

The finish of the 1920 DWM appears to have suffered as well. the blue on this gun is pretty "weak", and the SAFE stamp is very shallow.

This Luger has an unmarked wood-base commercial magazine. It is, in my mind, an open question as to what magazine is actually proper for this gun, and by extension, non-military Lugers in general. Conventional Wisdom has it that 1900 and 1906 Commercial (and AE) Lugers have unmarked wood base mags, and Alphabet Commercials have GERMANY stamped wood base mags. CW appears to be silent on what magazines are appropriate for 1908, 1914, and 1920 DWM Commercials, although I have heard the opinion expressed that these should be unmarked as well.

I have not come across anything in the literature which authoritatively explains the commercial magazine situation (just because I haven't seen it, doesn't mean it is not there, of course...). Not being serial numbered, there is no way to assure that any given magazine came with any given commercially-numbered Luger, 70-100 years later! In addition, there are 5-digit numbered magazines known, occasionally matching with a gun.

I would certainly like to hear others' thoughts on this subject.

This Luger being so near the end of the 5-digit serial number system, a comment on that range seem appropriate here.

Jan Still has determined that the 5-digit serial numbers ended in the 92,000; that being the numerical equivalent to the i suffix with which the Alphabet Commercial series begins. As noted upscreen, he has the Safe/Loaded Commercial series production at 2,000 pieces.

Virtually ALL of the English-language literature--Kenyon, Walter, Jones, Datig, Reese, Schwing's Standard catalog--have the 5-digit Commercial range ending at 96000, and the Safe/Loaded Commercial production around 6,000-7,000 guns. Only Fjestad's Blue Book's numbers match Still's (but he still calls them 1923 Commercial!).

My database has Safe/Loaded Commercials in an uninterrupted (though not full) range from 89572 to 91531; and the 5-digit number range stops pretty abruptly at 91989 (with only a very odd 1906 AE above that, #93595).

--Dwight

[Edward Tinker]

Dwight another great posting, thanks for the extensive writing!


ed

[Lugerdoc]

Dwight, My observations on commerical mag bottoms: post WW1 DWM mag bodies with be tin plated with unmarked wood bottoms. Quite often the wood used for these bottoms will have a light striped grain running at a 45 degree angle to the "ears" of the bottom. The only reason I can determine that some btms were Germany marked, is to comform to US Customs laws (since 1892) requiring products imported into the US, be marked with the country of origin. I seems to me that this would more readily apply to individual spare mags imported, as the gun as a unit was also marked. The US law changed in 1923 to require that the country of MANUFACTURE be marked, thus "made in Germany". Even though these customs laws were not rigerously enforced, it may be an aid to dating the manufacturing period of some Weimar commerical & reworks. After Mauser took over the production of lugers in 1930, the tube plating changed to nickel and the bottoms to aluminum, not to exclude Mauser using up any left over DWM parts that they "inherited". IMHO, the 5 digit numbered wood mag bottoms that one sees ocassionally, are of Police origin. TH

[John Sabato]

Dwight, as always... an excellent presentation! Thanks for sharing your research and your photos with the Luger brotherhood.

[BogeyB]

Dwight,


Great post...a question on yhe 1921 Military....are you sure on the firing pin is unmarked? I have one and it's unmarked.

BB

[Dwight Gruber]

BB,

In my quick survey for this article I have 6 20DWM; 2 1920 Police; 2 1921 Police; and 4 1921 Military. All firing pins are unmarked.

If you would, please let me know the serial# of your Luger, and the presence or absence of a serial number--on the breechblock, front toggle, left reciever, receiver locking lug, holdopen, grips, rear toggle. Also WaA if present.

If you prefer, email me dwightg@pacifier.com

Thanks much.

--Dwight

[BogeyB]

Dwight,

My 1921 DWM has the following:

s/n 9320 a

#20 and #93 on breechblock w/ D/WaA4

#20 front toggle

D/WaA4 D/WaA4 E/WaA4 on receiver

unmarked locking lug

#20 holdopen

unmarked grips

#20 rear toggle

s/n 9320 a and E/WaA4 on barrel

gun is unit marked: 10./J.R.17.10 w/ matching mag.

Hpoe this helps, and thanks for the help!

BogeyB

[Dwight Gruber]

BB,

Sounds like a neat gun, thanks for the extra info.

--Dwight