Unit identification

Received a double date 1915/1920 DWM for Xmas. Right side of breach shows to be military issue. Eagle on trigger housing, 1999 serial #,Gesighert on safety, strawed grips etc. X'd out markings on grip are S.L.Po1.2628 are what I'm trying to get help identifying. It has other marking on grip of S.P. over C. I believe this to be Schutzpolizei, District of Saxony, city of Chemnitz. If anybody can help it would be appreciated. Been to two gun shops, book stores, and two public libraries and am geting frustrated.

[tom]

Per Gortz, German Small Arms Markings from Authentic Sources, the C is Kassel (????)See p 93.


Having said that, Gortz listing is from the Prussian Polezi regulations and as you nore, Chemnitz is in Saxony.


Did the Saxon government have a different set of regulations? Was the Saxon government in existence or functioning in this period? I suspect that what you have concluded is probably correct, but until some documentation can be found that substantiates it, it is simply a logical assumption.


Ain't Lugers grand!


Tom

[Joe]

Dick

I also checked Gortz's book; German Small Arms Markings and the letters on your Luger, S.L.Po1.2628 should stand for the municicipal [S. Schutzpolizei] police at Luneburg [L.], police command #1 and weapon number 2628. There should have been a . between Po and 1, but the police armorer might have been distracted or had a bad day and missed it. I am sure the German cops understood what the meaning was, even without the period.

As mentioned above, Luger and weapon unit marks are not a defined science and often the armorer took license as to how closely he followed the regulations. This was true in both the military and the police marks.

As far as the other letters; S.P./C., the C was answered by a previous contributor. The letter P indicates the city of Potsdam. If these three letters are from seperate cities then you Luger has a lot of police mileage [history] on it.

Gentlemen: The 1922 and 1932 Prussian Dienstvorschrift for police property markings that was listed in Jan Still's earlier works on the Weimar Luger as well as 'Achim Gortz's work, is very specific regarding the sequence of letters and numbers. The marking on the Luger under discussion is not Prussian, but rather Saxon as was initially thought. These markings have been dicussed over the years in the issues of AutoMag. There are no known examples of Saxon police property marking manuals. Rather, the concensus of European and US collectors is that the "S.L.Pol." marking indicates the Saschisches Land Polizei (sic). The additional marking found underneath of S.P./C. can be more conclusively identified with Saxon police as identical markings are found on short swords positively identified as Saxon police as well as on Dreyse M1907 pistols which were also an accepted sidearm of the Saxon police. The S.P. is thought to be Staatliche Polizei or Saschische Polizei, while the C. indicates the city of Chemnitz. Excuse my spelling of Saxony, but it always gives me fits.

[BILL]

Very interesting thread! If you compare the technology of today to that of twenty years ago you can appreciate the sudden influx of knowledge in such a short time span. Twenty years ago anyone who was tenacious enough to publish a reference book had to wait until it was in print, purchased and read before they got the bad news (that there were errors in what they had researched). We accept that you can't believe or trust everything you read on the web but for some reason we still hang onto quoting books that were printed in the 1970's. Rarely do we see anyone quote the internet as a trusted source of information. Read the books, read Auto-Mag, read the forums and talk to the collectors and then pick and choose what makes the most sense to you. The postive side of this is that there is still 'new' information to be had if we are interested. My hat is off to Fred Datig for paving the way.

I don't think technology really has anything to do with any supposed influx of knowledge. The information in our collector books of twenty years ago is valid today. Still's series of books were produced using the combined knowledge of scores of NAPCA members, including myself, so that when after print, it fairly well represented a consensus of collector knowledge. Oh of course there were controversial interpretations such as the 1929 DWM vs. Sneak Mauser Lugers, but only the densest refused to accept the evidence presented. While it can facilitate the composing of books and articles, I find the internet to be usually a BS session, with substatiated information scarcely found. There is still information out there in archives waiting to be discovered. It just takes time and money to ferret out new facts and the Internet can sometimes be used to speed communications. Datig was a pioneer as was Harry Jones and Bob Whittington.