sharing a 'police unit marking' discovery

[gerhard]

A couple of years ago,I bought a double date police re-work,(1920/1911 DWM). The front grip-strap was stamped "K.Lj.17."Nobody was sure of this one.One member remembered it and put the photo of this gripstrap marking on the board. It was the same question from a previous owner and it was
my gun. Anyhow the consensus was, "we don't know or somebody faked it". It bothered me slightly never to know for sure. I'm getting there. Today I received a copy of a booklet called 'Le Luger' an abbreviated version of 'Gazette de armes'. It's all in French, but one can still find info from pictures and actual words that remain the same.I am not trying to bore you guys. On page 67 there is a photo of a wood bottomed mag and on the spine is stamped the exact same size and font marking K.Lj.51.Gun 51 instead of 17). His translation of the meaning is of course in German, "Koeslin (K) Landjaegerei(Lj) and weopon no.51. The oe is the o with 2 dots and the a also has 2 dots. I did'nt know that Landjaegerei was abbreviated both just L and also Lj. Also I did'nt know that police mags with wood buttons were marked this way (I'm sure not always) before the aluminum ones were used, and they simply changed to police eagles and no 1,2,3...
To make this story long?
thanks for reading and I certainly feel better that I found that same marking. But I never heard of the town or city of Koeslin.
Gary

[refurb]

Could be Kiel.

[donmaus]

Gary, can you post a scan of the photo of the marking on the mag spine?

[DickMcEvoy]

Hi Don, Just to add a clarification; in the K.L j.51. the height of the lower case 'j' and '51' is a little more than half the height of the capitals K.L in the same font style. Note the L has no period after it

The description in French is : "Un type de marquage inhabituel, sur la face arriere d'un chargeur arme No 51 de la police rurale ( Lj=Pour Landjagerei) de Koslin = K", with umlauts over the 2nd 'a' in Landjagerei and 'o' in Koslin. Hope this helps.

Koslin ( now Koszalin) was a town in western Pomerania, Prussia, now in Poland.

[donmaus]

Dick, thanks very much for the description but I really hope to be able to see the photo to compare the "j" with that on Gary's grip strap. The earlier thread on this (http://luger.gunboards.com/showthread.php?t=14393) explains some of what I'm looking for.

Gary, while I don't know what these markings mean, I can assure you that they do not stand for the Landjägerei of the Kösllin or any other Prussian administrative district. The Prussian Landjägerei was formed in 1920 and did not mark its weapons until about 1931-32. When they did, they followed the instructions in a 1932 order which specified the marking for the Köslin district as L.K.

More about all this can be found in my book History Writ in Steel which should be available from Simpson Ltd by the end of this month.

[DickMcEvoy]

Hi Don, After careful scrutiny of the 'j' on Attachment 89.99KB you posted 4.16.08 and the French illustration, I conclude they share identical characteristics. The 'fish hook' curve terminating in a point and the slight left side serif at the top of the 'j' are the same as are the heights relative to the K.L height. The font styles are also the same. However we await your analysis when you can view a scan of the French photo, which is quire clear.

BTW, In spite of language, the 80 page French magazine series Le Luger, vol,1 & 2, Le P.38 & Le C-96 are a mine of never seen color photographs of excellent European collections with accurate text and descriptions, Police markings aside!

[gerhard]

Hi Don, In my search for Koeslin I ran across radix.net/bbrown/police unit marks.html .The info reads as follows:Prussian Police(Schutzpolizei)Unit Marks,1922 S.K.- Koeslin District,following that under the title Prussian Police(Schutzpolizei),1932,amended regulations issued as follows:Prussian Police,K=Koeslin
It names all of the various districts,but I'm just noting this one.(Other K's are Ka.-Kassel and Kg.-Koenigsberg).The only other single K.is assigned to Kriminalpolizei(detective force),which I'm sure you know.There are other single L's like Landjaegerei and L.for Lindau, perhaps they tried to avoid confusion by using Lj.I'm not into pictures yet,but in looking at the mag spline and my gun,the letters K the L and the small j are identical. The small j goes below the rest of the letters and numbers, and the period on top of the j is even with the top of the no's. The 1 in 51 is also identical to the 1 in 17. I'm a retired design engr., and in my opinion the letters came from the same stamping dies. Anyhow I was very surprised to find the same markings in another book, whatever Lj. may be, Gary

[Edward Tinker]

Yes, this is a good book that the entire webpage is based on: The following tables list the base forms for police unit marks found in German Small Arms Markings From Authentic Sources by J. Goertz and D. Bryans, Walsworth Publishing Co., Marceline MO, USA, 1997.

Which Don Maus, as well as others would have used.

This website looks very familiar, he finds info and then uses it on his site (extensively uses it, not just refering to it), which is a copyright infringment btw...


Ed

[donmaus]

If I have understood Gary's post, he is unable to supply a scan of the photo in the French book. Dick, can you?

The photo below includes a close-up of the "j" on Gary's gun (from a former owner). I do not believe this was die-stamped. It appears to have been hand-engraved over an earlier stamped character. I am hoping the photo in the French book is good enough to determine if it was created the same way.

[DickMcEvoy]

Hi Don, it's on the way as we discussed this evening. Await your verdict.
Best regards, Dick