History of My "Balck Widow"...

Well, after a few days plowing through my luger books and e-mailing with Ralph Shattuck and a few others, I have been able to piece together some of the "history" of my newly acquired '41 byf "Black Widow" :


1. It appears that parts of my BW were originally an Erfurt luger or at least Erfurt parts.


2. Along side and in some cases beneath the more recently stamped German army proof marks, there were other stampings that were much "older". These older stampings were old, not sharp or well detailed. Such proof markings on my BW are the same ones shown the the M. Reese book, Luger Tips (revised edtion) on page 55. There are a crown/V in circle, a crown/GP, and a NP marking on the barrel (with the german army test stamp of an eagle/swaztika) on top of these older Erfurst stampings. The crown/V in circle stamping also occurs on the top of each of the three toggle sections as well as on the rigth side of the frame, directly opposite the thumb safety. The "older" markings were old, not deep, having no sharp edges, hard to read; all consistent with the theory that these Erfurst parts were reworked (sanding/polished) by Masuer when my BW was made and finally blued. See my earlier Forum posting, my photos # 5 and # 6 for a look at some of these marks...


3. Then my BW has the "Not English Make" stamping on the right side frame rail (also shown on page 55 of the Reese book). In addition, there are some extra British proof house stampings. This seems to confirm that my BW made its way to England during or after WWII.


As first, I was very nervous not knowing why my BW could have older markings from the Weimar era. I also did not know about the English proof marks, so needless to say I did not sleep easily for a few days.


No one here on the Forum told me that the detective work to get to know something about your luger is almost, if not more fun, than actually finding and buying a luger...