My eyes will be pealed whenever I run into the book guy at a gun show, and every gun show seems to have a book guy.Īs for my Luger it is a 9mm, 1920 dated pistol and that looks to be the date of manufacture rather than the '1920' government property mark that shows up on a lot of these. Thank you for the list of useful texts on the subject. As you probably know, Lugers originally had almost every part in the pistol stamped with the last two numbers of the four digit serial number, and in the case of some commercial Lugers the numbers may have been removed and re-stamped to make the numbers of re-fitted parts agree, or to have no numbers at all except the main serial number. I have seen post WW I commercial imports without a suffix after the serial number, and I assume that it may have been removed or perhaps the entire number and suffix were removed and the guns completely renumbered. I own DWM 4 m, but there are (or were) probably at least 3 more out there with the same serial number. It is my understanding that they went through the entire alphabet 3 or 4 times. For example: 1 a all the way to 9999 a, then started over with 1 b. Oh-as for the serial numbers, in general they ran in series of 9999 units with a suffix lower case letter. Anyway, congratulations on your acquisition, and if you get the opportunity to post some detailed photos I'm sure someone can tell you exactly what you have. I have a very early one that is police marked and was manufactured without a hold open device, then apparently taken and re-issued to a hospital train unit-and somehow it got over here, no doubt brought home by a G.I. It is a fascinating field of weaponology, as Lugers can be found with a great variety of military unit markings and the logos of several manufacturers. Usually a Luger with police markings will date to pre-WW I. They can be found with various dates on the receiver rings, but many were scrubbed of dates. Many of them were converted to 7.65mm (.30 Cal.) and exported to the U.S. My understanding of post WW I commercial Lugers is that most of them were reworked WW I guns that were sold on the commercial market to raise badly needed cash. I'm not sure what you mean that your pistol is a post WW I commercial. Whittington III.Īs for your individual Luger, photos always help.

Hogg German Pistols and Holsters 1934-1945, Lt. Datig, Lugers At Random, Charles Kenyon, Jr., Monograph II: The German Military Pistols 1904-1930, Fred A. But you might find them for sale on line as used books at reasonable prices. Since I've owned the books for years I can't give current sources for them or what they might cost, and I suspect that they're mostly long out of print. Webley, I don't bill myself as an expert on Lugers, but I do own several and have several books on the subject.

Luger p08 serial numbers