Luger 1918

[Anatolij]

I want to ask for your help, I bought this one Luger of the 1918 production, but eagles have been pressure only under from 1942, and two-digit number. On the tube is the number 42, I realize that this gun was repaired Mauzer factory in 1942 and handed over to the police, this is the SS units. Maybe I'm wrong but I can not find more information.Full part numbers overlap than the original, the weapon very good condition.

[Edward Tinker]

ok, no offense, but I am unsure what you mean. Why do you think Mauser re-did it and then turned over to the SS? Let alone police?

It looks more like a postwar force match - larger numbers, Erfurt parts and byf toggle numbered, and the eagle N (if thats what it is, looks wrong to me)

Looked like size was wrong, but Sturgess says;

Ed

[Anatolij]

Eagle with the letter N is a police signs, as only speculate that this could be the SS, I found a few eagles there figures are 63. I am beginning to think that my purchase bad

[Mac Cat]

Would the factory have created parts with a single digit or no numbers, intended for future replacement or repairs ? The font size for the first digit is so obviously different and yet it was repeated in so many places, including the grips. The 2 digits on the frame under the barrel don't look correct at all. No suffix, either.

[alanint]

This is a boosted gun with fake numbers throughout, in my opinion. Everything looks off here.

[Anatolij]

Numbers are authentic, the weapon was purchased from a German collector who had died, his children sold arms

[wlyon]

Sorry but this is a parts gun with boosted serial numbers. Not much authentic except the various parts sans the numbers. Should make a good shooter but not a collectible. Bill

[Anatolij]

how many cost weapons, if i want to sell

[Desperado]

Isn't that a LP.08 frame (notched in front of the 1918)? So that would mean DWM frame (Erfurt didn't make LP.08s in 1918) with a Mauser (byf) toggle and Erfurt small parts (side plate for sure)? Would Mauser use a mixture of parts like that to re-work a pistol?

[Ron Wood]

After 1914 all Erfurt frames were notched. The Eagle/N and Eagle /J markings indicate a Suhl commercial gunsmith repair/rebuild as indicated in the illustration caption that Ed posted. Do not know if the gun was renumbered then or subsequently, but I am reluctant to call it a complete fake.

[Lugerdoc]

I agree with Ron, probably some unnumbered WW2 armour's spare parts (E/63 on frame & code 42 under the barrel, that were assembled postwar by a Suhl gunsmith for the GI market. TH

[DonVoigt]

Anatolj,
the Eagle N is not a Police mark- that is certain. I believe the receiver is a spare receiver built by Erfurt in 1918.

It is likely as Ed said, a post war II assembly by a gunsmith in the Suhl area, for GI sales.
Kind of like what we would call a "PX" gun, meaning sold to a GI .

It would fall into the same category price wise, of a "Vopo" luger, as a shooter, and value $600 to 800, + or - around here.

[wlyon]

Ron
Nobody called it a fake. Just a mixed parts luger with boosted numbers. There are lugers with boosted numbers to deceive and their are boosted numbers just to get all to match. With the various parts on this one there was no reason to deceive anyone. Bill

[Ron Wood]

"Fake" was mentioned in one of the posts, so I thought I might clear things up a bit. I agree with you and I don't think there is any deception involved...'nuff said
Ron

[Dwight Gruber]

My source for the proof mark information is “The Standard Directory of Proof Marks”, Gerhard Wirnsberger (trans. R.A. Steindler), 1978. After reading Don Voigt’s comments I went back to this source. A closer re-reading reveals certain information I missed the first time around, which substantially alters my factual commentary and conclusions. I have revised the pertinent parts of the post to reflect this.--DG

The chamber date on this pistol is 1918. The single crown/letter Imperial inspection mark (along with the associated c/RC Revisions-Commission certification) indicate that the receiver was inspected after manufacture and date stamp. The absence of any other right receiver marks reveal that the receiver was never assembled into a complete pistol, and never made it as far as being an armory spare. It simply languished as an unfinished piece.

The 42 stamped under the barrel indicates that the barrel was a Mauser-made armorer’s spare part, made after late-1939. The straight-wing eagle/63 on the barrel’s upper left is the style of WaffenAmt inspection mark in use after 1937.

The straight-wing eagle/63 on the trigger guard is mysterious. It is suggestive of a spare-part frame, but this is an unsupportable speculation. The frame has the distinct “hump” protrusion at the rear which appeared in 1937, but lacks the P08 frame panel stamp introduced in 1941.

The byf center toggle dates from 1941-1942.

The sideplate bears the Imperial inspector’s stamp from the Erfurt factory.

Mauser's production of the P08 for the Wehrmacht ended in November of 1942. There were still sufficient parts on hand to provide replacement and repair stock, and intermittently produce small contract and specialty pistol runs. The characteristics of pistols produced under these circumstances are generally recognized.

The eagle/letters which denote police acceptance are e/C, e/F, e/K, or e/L. These are found only on the right receiver, and are of a distinctly different size and style from the eagle/Letters on this pistol.

The e/Ns and e/J found here are specified by the German proof law of 1939, which became effective in 1940. These are markings stamped after power-proofing at a civilian proof house. The e/Ns are the actual nitro power proof marks, and the e/J certifies a repair after proofing. After 1939 the established German proof houses were located at Oberndorf am Neckar, Suhl, Zella-Mehlis, Fehrlach, Vienna, and Wiepert. (In accordance with known practice, the Oberndorf proofing office was probably located within the Mauser factory.)

Each proof house also applied their own particularly identifying stamps:
Oberndorf = a stag’s antler
Zella-Mehlis = a heart with a fir tree
Suhl = a (shoe?) “sole” with a pick-axe
Ferlach = the coat-of-arms of Carinthia
Vienna = the coat of arms of Vienna
Wiepert = a falling fir tree within an escutcheon, below two iron clubs
Without the inclusion of the appropriate identifier, it is not possible to know which specific proof house proofed this pistol.

At the war’s end in 1945 the manufacture and use of firearms in Germany was forbidden. After 1948 shotgun manufacture was begun in Suhl, proofed with only the Suhl identifying stamp; the characteristic East German proof stamping at Suhl began in 1950.

In 1952 limited firearms production began in West Germany, under the 1939 proofing regulations, but with a different style of eagle stamp.

In conclusion, it does seem that this pistol was assembled from predominately spare or unused parts by some independent gunsmith (and numbered as a singular pistol), between 1941-1945 (highly likely after 1942), for commercial sale in Germany, or in one of the other countries in Europe which shared reciprocity with Germany’s proof law.

If this was, indeed, a post-war assembly intended for a U.S. GI, it would assuredly not have any sort of German proofs as there was no government to proof them.

--Dwight

[DavidJayUden]

Facinating, Dwight. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
dju

[Sergio Natali]

Originally Posted by DavidJayUden

Facinating, Dwight. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
dju

+1
great, thanks David.

[DonVoigt]

Just one more point regarding the Suhl statement:
"An additional observation must be made. If this was, indeed, a post-war assembly intended for a U.S. GI, it would assuredly not have been proofed in Suhl or Zella-Mehlis. These two cities were well inside the post-war Soviet Zone. Considering the predominately Mauser-sourced parts, and the absence of a proof house identifier, the most likely source of this pistol would be somewhere in the neighborhood of Oberndorf am Neckar."

Immediately post war, the zones were not firmly established, the US did have GI's in Thuringia.
I grew up as an acolyte of a man who was in Army ordnance that spent significant time there investigating/documenting the arms industry.

Use of Erfurt mfg parts screams East Germany to me; as we see so many used in "Vopo" lugers.

So while maybe not likely, it is surely not impossible that Suhl marked pistols were sold or found their way to GIs.

Re-reading the story though, it seems this pistol came from a "German" family source, which is a little tough to understand also. I don't believe many civilians were armed in East Germany.
But then it could been made by whatever arms industry survived in post war EG, and were allowed to be sold there(someone is always allowed to be special/high rank/or just connected) or exported to the rest of the East bloc.

JMHO,
since I always see grey and love exceptions to the "rules".

[Ron Wood]

Don,
Reasonable assessment. As with all things Luger, absolutes are not always
Ron

[Anatolij]

Wow, what history, very many thanks for the information originally wanted to sell the gun, but now I see that it is a little bit unique, though partly assembled after the war. Weapon condition is very good, I keep that to myself. I like WWII weapons, I have, Walter P38 1944