The problem is that Lugers, to quote my old pal TE Lawrence, are "a series of exceptions to some unrecoverable rule". No Halo = Fake (if a halo should be there. The many marks on a Luger are applied at different stages of the manufacturing process.
I've had 5 of the critters who were not as represented. Why? Because Lugers are faked regularly and with devious intent. That means that the date was stamped BEFORE final finishing. The stamping forces the metal to flow up and around as it were, thus spreading the blueing out, thinning it and making it lighter thus creating the halo. That occurs when a stamp is applied AFTER the metal is blued. Oh, note the faint "halo" around the "59". Military Lugers were marked with the attention to completeness that one would expect from the bloody Germans, that is to say on every piece :D.
The stamps are (L to R) the odd "Ub", the date and the last two digits of the serial number. They have, on the top of the weapon over the chamber (the place that accepts the cartridge for firing), a peculiar stamp. I made that up since I don't know if there is actually a collectors designation for these things. Incidentally, these are definitively "Weapons of War" (the new snowflake buzzword) so would be, in a snowflake brave new world, taken away and melted down or something.Īmong the many different Lugers there is a rare bird that might be referred to as the "Test Luger". I own around 15 Lugers and don't consider myself a collector of them, I simply "own some Lugers". I have around 25 books on the subject and my library is that of an interested amateur. I have heard that you would need a collection of ~500 individual specimens to have all of the common Luger variations.
Now, to collect Lugers is to fall into the Rabbit Hole. If you pick it up, even a pansy assed snowflake, you immediately look for something to swipe. You pick up a Luger it just points at the target. It is also one of those things that I think of as masterpieces of design. Maybe the AK is catching up but I'd wager that if you did a properly constructed test subjects would pick the Luger profile as being most recognizable. The Luger is probably the most iconic firearm in the world.
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