Jan,
I believe you are correct that these C/X C/X C/X marked Lugers had nothing to do with testing. The commercial serial numbered examples no doubt were pulled from production to fill a shortfall in military wartime arms buildup. I suspect that the 1914 dated 1908-pattern examples that are serial numbered in the military style were pieces drawn from non-issued stockpiles, arsenal date stamped with the year of issue per regulation, and pressed into service. This contingency supplement to military Luger acquisition probably occurred at the same time from both sources, undoubtedly in the 1913-1914 timeframe as Luke has asserted (and supported by the 1914 date on the military-style pieces!). Very likely these supplemental weapons, being part of this urgent buildup program, were subject to the same acceptance process from both sources, resulting in the C/X C/X C/X acceptance marks being applied to the two variants. This is all conjecture of course, but it works a lot better for me than labeling them as “test” pieces.
I am now prepared to tuck my tail also if necessary.
I believe you are correct that these C/X C/X C/X marked Lugers had nothing to do with testing. The commercial serial numbered examples no doubt were pulled from production to fill a shortfall in military wartime arms buildup. I suspect that the 1914 dated 1908-pattern examples that are serial numbered in the military style were pieces drawn from non-issued stockpiles, arsenal date stamped with the year of issue per regulation, and pressed into service. This contingency supplement to military Luger acquisition probably occurred at the same time from both sources, undoubtedly in the 1913-1914 timeframe as Luke has asserted (and supported by the 1914 date on the military-style pieces!). Very likely these supplemental weapons, being part of this urgent buildup program, were subject to the same acceptance process from both sources, resulting in the C/X C/X C/X acceptance marks being applied to the two variants. This is all conjecture of course, but it works a lot better for me than labeling them as “test” pieces.
I am now prepared to tuck my tail also if necessary.
