German Luger help

Lugers should have matched numbered parts, but if they were rebuilt over time, the numbers will become mis-matched. Even the magazine should be numbered to match the gun's serial number.

My early 40s Mauser is a mixmaster and I paid about 10 percent less than your's asking price. I got mine to shoot once in a while.

The "Made in Germany" would make me suspicious of the actual history of the hand gun. It still may be a good shooter, just not a collector item.

I am sure there are some experts out there with web connections that would have better information than I.

The "Made In Germany" stamp means it is a post WWII commercial import, so any tales of a wartime bringback are so much moonshine. The eagle stamp is the German army Waffen acceptance mark, so it was a military issue at one time, but probably a rebuilt mixmaster imported into the US much later. A bunch of them like this, with kind of a painted black refinish instead of the original commercial blue, came in from the former East Germany just a few years ago. As I recall, the prices ran from $600-$900, depending on the maker and year of manufacture, but Lugers are kind of a specialized field for collectors, and tiny variations in marks and condition can make huge differences in valuation.

The man said the previous owners granpa brought it back from the war.

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What threw me off was the barrel seems shinier than the rest of the gun an is marked "made in Germany" underneath, in English

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Those two things don't match. Someone's Grandpa could not have brought that gun back from WWII. No Lugers were made stamped "Made In Germany" in English on the barrels. Post war guns would have been marked "Made in West Germany" if stamped at all as there was not a unified Germany till recently. No Lugars made in the post war period were so marked.

The shop is offering a gun made of spare parts of origins that you don't know for a price that is way too high for what it is. Avoid it.

If you want a Lugar do some research first. Than look for a good quality gun with matched parts or at least parts that you know are properly made. Take your time. You want a Lugar the research will be worth the effort.

It means someone swapped out the barrel. The frame may be from 1916, the various parts from different decades, and the barrel from...well whenever. Maybe a 400. gun. If that.

You may want to drop by here...http://www.lugerforum.com/

Or here...http://luger.gunboards.com/activity.php

For technical information and other discussions.

tipoc

jogar80 said:

GCburner, yea that sounds a lot like what I was looking at. The frame had a worn but flat black looking finish on it, like flat paint. The only thing blued was the barrel. What about the 1916 stamp on it? Any clue?

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The 1916 date is when the receiver was originally manufactured, so that part, at least, dates back to the First World War. It was probably used in WWII, also. After WWII, East Germany and the USSR reworked and rebuilt a lot of Lugers they had available for issue to the VOPO civilian police officers, and just replaced pats as needed. A pistol might have parts from several different manufacturers, German or Swiss, and the finish was a cheap flat black coating. Once East Germany had a big enough stock of their own Makarov pistols, they replaced all the old worn Lugers, and kept them stockpiled in reserve. After the reunification of Germany, some of them started hitting the surplus market, and they're now fairly common on the auction sites and gunshows. They should be shootable, but not necessarily collectible, and they generally go for much less than the $1,000 asking price you have there.