DWM 1915 Luger

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Please post pictures.

Luger values are so dependent on originality, condition, and provenance that it's really difficult to assess a pistol based on a description. This is particularly true if there's something seemingly odd about the gun – there are a number of documented reworks that may change the values.
 
A crown/N barrel mark indicates a commercial barrel, so that was most likely a later replacement, unfortunately.

By the way, most military WWI Lugers you will run into have 4-digit serial numbers, they were numbered 1-9999 with a letter suffix, and then started over with 1 and the next letter. Commercial guns (starting in 1900) were numbered from 1 up to around 92000 in the early '20s, then the commercial guns started a 4-digit + suffix numbering scheme much like the military guns. There are also foreign contract Lugers where DWM used a separate numbering scheme, depending on what the customer wanted.

Some nice pictures would help pin down some other characteristics of your Luger.
 
It has the look of a refinished gun, but it looks like a nice job. The extractor would not originally have been strawed, but blued. You didn't say, but I assume it is 9mm? There are some stamps on it that I don't know recognize, a good place to post your pics and get more feedback is either Luger.gunboards.com or lugerforum.com.
 
The take down lever is a force matched restamp.

It appears (as best as I can tell from your photo) that the magazine is an aluminum based version, totally incorrect for 1915 as all mag bases were wood.

The "X" indicates that it is a Russian capture/rework, and the odd sunburst crest (I believe) stamped by the Imperial German proofs would indicate issue to an East German Berlin police unit.

The gun has been rebarreled since, as had been pointed out prior, the crown "N" is a commercial proof.

Virtually all Russian capture reworks were reblued whether they needed it or not.
 
I kinda feel sorry for the guy. Unfortunately, Lugers today are a quagmire of fakes, reissues, and any other thing you can think of to sell them. It's one of those deals where, if you don't know enough about them, you get taken.
 
The unnumbered side plate is a replacement.
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Jim, the sideplate was numbered "61" (IIRC), and the font looked correct to me, although the plate itself looked too new and crisp.
 
The magazine was suspicious. Don't know if the OP was hoping for a collectable, or a shooter. Certainly looked like a nice shooter. I would question it being all original.
 
The magazine was suspicious. Don't know if the OP was hoping for a collectable, or a shooter. Certainly looked like a nice shooter. I would question it being all original.
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The magazine was definitely not period correct, being aluminum; 1915 would be wood base. The fact that it matched the gun is another factor that leads me to believe that is an East German reissue; The mags were renumbered to match the guns. I have an E. German reissue, complete with the "X", so I figure that the Russians sent those back to Germany to fit in with their chain of supply so to speak.

The font on the takedown lever, being much larger than normal, was obviously added at a later date.

The "crown N" proof on the barrel was not right, either, and was obviously a replacement. (Possibly in 7.65mm.) I didn't get a close enough look at it to be absolutely sure, but an E. German Suhl proof is similar, but usually is accompanied by a date underneath to indicate when the barrel was installed. The dates are generally in the early 50s. Mine is dated 8-53.

I think the guy was offended by what he perceived as attacks, and is probably smarting from learning that his beautiful original collector gun isn't. but he's not the first and certainly not the last to have that happen.

At any rate, I believe he said he paid $900.00 for it, and, in today's world, that's still not a bad price to pay for a shooter.
 
Agreed. Dealing in 'collectible' Lugers is tricky business. At this point, any functioning Luger in decent shape is worth $900.
 
The Crown/N Nitro proof is East German (Suhl); they revived the old imperial Crown markings to replace the Nazi eagle markings. It is a barrel proof and was applied to spare barrels proved in a test fixture.

Jim
 
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