Hi,
I don't think it's going to be easy to make sense of early numbering. Some contracts demanded contract-numbering, some didn't. Some pistols were taken from commercial production and then changed to meet test demands, etc..
As far as I know, there was only one main Parabellum production facility until 1909, with some parts supplied by subcontractors. The name of Bayard/Pieper has been mentioned as one of the parts suppliers.
They were quite able to produce many variations using a single machining set-up where some minor variations just required additional machine steps. Many of the machines used could be adjusted or set to produce one variation or another.
I don't think it's going to be easy to make sense of early numbering. Some contracts demanded contract-numbering, some didn't. Some pistols were taken from commercial production and then changed to meet test demands, etc..
As far as I know, there was only one main Parabellum production facility until 1909, with some parts supplied by subcontractors. The name of Bayard/Pieper has been mentioned as one of the parts suppliers.
They were quite able to produce many variations using a single machining set-up where some minor variations just required additional machine steps. Many of the machines used could be adjusted or set to produce one variation or another.
