For Luger Ken Death's Head Luger Pic (EOM)

[KEN]

Thank you Hugh.

[Ron Wood]

I for one would like to see a picture of the rest of the Luger.

[Ron Wood]

Will try to oblige at a later date. My computer is going in for a rebuild tomorrow, so I may be off line for a while. The Luger is not nearly as pretty as the picture would indicate. I have been told that it probably was part of a shipment that came in from Austria in the late 60's and most of these were rough. Mine has a replacement sideplate that has had the correct number added, but in an incorrect font. The other thing that is neat about it is that even though it is a 1913, it has a stock lug so it is the start of the "1914" model type. It is a DWM.

Ron, To my knowledge, the only 1913 dated PO8s with stock lug, were built by Erfurt in Dec. 1913. If you have a 1914 style DWM dated 1913, it's either very rare or a phony. Tom h.

[Ron Wood]

Tom

You may very well be right. But, I don't think it is either very rare or phony. Both Kenyon and Still state that DWM produced Lugers in late 1913 with a stock lug. Still goes on to say that some 1914 DWMs are also found without a stock lug. Having said that, I am not at all certain that my Luger began life with a stock lug. It has been "rode hard and put up wet". It had profuse pitting that was probably wire brushed, then both the barrel/receiver and frame were dip blued. As I said in the previous posting, I had heard at one time that a clutch of these "re-worked" Lugers had come in from Austria in the late 1960's. This one just happened to have a Death Head on it. The barrel and frame serial numbers match but it is a very low number, 1612 without a letter suffix, so unless it was the start of the 1914 production, that number doesn't seem likely. The font and size of the frame number looks like it goes with the barrel, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't re-numbered. Now, about that "phony" lable. Phony to me means a deliberate attempt to fake or decieve. Even in 1970, a reasonably sound Luger with two boxes of ammo, a fairly decent Luger holster (I don't even remember what kind it was!) and an WWI Iron Cross and an Ehrenkreuz on a ribbon bar for $100 doesn't sound like I was being ripped off with a fake. Even if it is a "phony" 1913 DWM with a stock lug, that stigma does not extend to the Death Head marking. I have had the gun looked at by a number of folks, including Klaus Shad who contributed to Jan Still's write-up on the Death Head Luger, and all agreed that it was an authentic Death Head. Bottom line, if you consider it a "phony", it is MY PHONEY and I'm keeping it, 'cause I like it and I think it is real.

[Ron Wood]