Crown/O Acceptance on Erfurts only?

[Don M]

Does anyone know whether c/O or c/O acceptance stamps on a 1918 dated receiver is proof of Erfurt manufacture or not?

[klaus 3338]

I think it is the letter J and one can find it (with a 3 lobe crown) on Erfurt Lugers only (and not on DWM Lugers).

[Don M]

Klaus, thank you. I thought this was going to be ignored.

The stamping I'm interested in looks just like the letter in my original post except it is underlined. I believe the letter J looks like that below.

[Ron Wood]

Don,
I do not know if it is proof of Erfurt manufacture or not, but I would agree with you that the marking is an underlined "O".

[Dwight Gruber]

Don,

The inspector listing on Jan Stills's Forum http://luger.gunboards.com/showthrea...EPTANCE-STAMPS reports c/O inspector stamps only on 1916, 1917, and 1918 Erfurts.

Görtz & Wacker's Handbuch Deutscher Waffenstempel lists the only c/O inspector as Herr Osterode at Danzig.

--Dwight

[Edward Tinker]

Don, next time your post gets lost in the shuffle, just knock it back up by posting a comment for help on same thread - we never want a member & friend to feel their post is ignored (I sure don't like the feeling )

Ed

[Don M]

Originally Posted by Edward Tinker

Don, next time your post gets lost in the shuffle, just knock it back up by posting a comment for help on same thread - we never want a member & friend to feel their post is ignored (I sure don't like the feeling )

Ed

Ed, what actually happened was that I got absorbed in researching the question of DWM's production of 9-mm P08s and sort of forgot about this post.

Thank you Klaus, Ron and Dwight for your inputs.

[John Sabato]

Don if I knew the answer to your question I would have responded as soon as I saw it. If someone here doesn't know, you can be sure that the basis for your question probably wasn't documented in all the historical publications. If you are not subscribing to your own posts, I recommend you do so. That way when a response is posted, you get an instant email.

Great question!

[Don M]

John, I do subscribe and get emails. I really don't have any complaints/problems except for my waning ability to multitask.

[John Sabato]

I have found at this age that when I sharpen my mind enough to be able to multi-task, I end up cutting myself!

[klaus 3338]

Originally Posted by Don M

Klaus, thank you. I thought this was going to be ignored.

The stamping I'm interested in looks just like the letter in my original post except it is underlined. I believe the letter J looks like that below.

Letters like this came from Gothic, Schwabacher or Fraktur- writing and the letter is never an "O". It is an I or J.

[Ron Wood]

Looks a lot like an "O" to me.

[Don M]

Originally Posted by Dwight Gruber

The inspector listing on Jan Stills's Forum http://luger.gunboards.com/showthrea...EPTANCE-STAMPS reports c/O inspector stamps only on 1916, 1917, and 1918 Erfurts.

Görtz & Wacker's Handbuch Deutscher Waffenstempel lists the only c/O inspector as Herr Osterode at Danzig.

Dwight, thanks for these references. I looked them up and see what you're saying. They are contradictory since Still clearly shows c/O stamps on Erfurt pistols.

The mark I'm really interested in is c/O (underlined). I wonder if there was another inspector O at Erfurt that G&W missed and that underlines either were not reported to Still or were omitted by him in compiling his list. He lists a lot of c/T markings on 1917 & 1918 DWMs that I'm sure are really c/T. He doesn't list any underlined letters.

[Ron Wood]

The underlined letters have been discussed in a few posts in the past. I think underlined T is one of the most frequently encountered but I have seen others. It might be a fun project to compile a photo list of known examples. I think general consensus is that, as you have said, there were probably two (or more) inspectors with the same last initial working at the same time. I suspect that there were a few inspectors whose names have been lost to time and therefore have been "missed" by G&S and others.

[Dwight Gruber]

Don,

The mark you picture is identified as F on p.463 of the Sturgess "red edition".

--Dwight

[Ron Wood]

Originally Posted by Dwight Gruber

Don,

The mark you picture is identified as F on p.463 of the Sturgess "red edition".

--Dwight

Close but not quite. The F on p.463 has a very pronounced serif on the top left of the letter. The mark Don posted is sans serif. It does resemble the blurry image on p.462 that G&S identify as a F but it is hard to tell. Don's mark still most closely resembles the Fraktur O that he originally posted. As with many things in the early production and inspection marking of Lugers there appear to be exceptions to what has been published in the research. We are always learning.

[Don M]

Originally Posted by Dwight Gruber

The mark you picture is identified as F on p.463 of the Sturgess "red edition".

Dwight, I have looked at that and examined the stamping on my pistol. I concur with Ron about the lack of an upper left serif on my mark. I also blew up the photo on p. 463 and note that the horizontal bar on the F does not extend across the middle of the character although one of the illustrations shows it continuous but slanted. Mine is continuous and horizontal.

I also note that the O in G&S does not look anything like the O in the G&W Handbuch. I don't know why.

Since Still's list showing the existence of "O" stamps on many Erfurts was compiled before the publication of the G&S book, he and those submitting data must have used the representation in earlier references so I expect my id of my mark as O is consistent with theirs.

How the heck did Germans read this stuff?

[Ron Wood]

Originally Posted by Don M

...How the heck did Germans read this stuff?

You think Fraktur is bad, you should try Sütterlinschrift...that is really impossible.

[klaus 3338]

May be it looks like an O but it is an I or J

[Don M]

I'm beginning to see the source of our disagreement --- we are using different alphabets! Mine, illustrated below, was taken from p. 142 of Görtz & Bryans' German Small Arms Markings from Authentic Sources (1997). This alphabet is also found in Görtz & Wacker's Handbuch Deutscher Waffenstempel (2005), pp. 333-42 and Still's Central Powers Pistols (2007), p. 16. I don't have a copy of Still's earlier Imperial Lugers but, if it has a Gothic alphabet, I suspect it is the same as in CPP. I hope someone can check this. Klaus, yours is similar to, but slightly different from, one of the two versions in Görtzz & Sturgess' The Borchardt - Luger Pistols (2010 & 2011), p. 463. What is the source of yours?