Just realized we had a Luger forum so I'm posting over here. I know someone that has a matching numbers 1918 Erfurt. I've seen it in person and the pics are about representative of the finish. We removed the grips and they're matching as well, with a very faint dirty eagle on one. The mag was all metal and I didn't notice any markings. Bore looks good. Shiny and rifling left. I don't have a Luger and always thought they'd be out of my reach price wise.

He's asking 1600 obo but went to 1500. Myself, I had a number 1200 in mind but these things seem all over the place. Here are some of the photos.

I have a really nice Springfield Garand that I offered in trade along with a cut down bayonet and scabbard, and a bandoleer of HXP ammo but he didn't jump at the offer.

He knew I had Winchester grands and was interested in one of those but I have a hard time letting one of those go.

What do you think it's worth? Nice to get another opinion...

The photos are really tiny, so kind of hard to get a good grasp of the finish - for example, the photo of the front of the receiver and bottom of the barrel is entirely in shadow. You can't really see the serial numbers, if they match, or if there's a halo around the numbers on the barrel (there should be, I think). It also depends a bit on if the gun is marked "GERMANY" or "MADE IN GERMANY" anywhere, in english...that means it's a post-war (WWI) import. If there's no "GERMANY" then it might be a bringback...

What kind of eagle? A Nazi eagle? Eagle over N? Lots of eagles involved..


Edit - if it's actually correct and original, 1600 isn't a bad price IMO. It might fetch more on Gunbroker depending on originality, so on so forth. There's a lot of minutia on Lugers that I really don't know enough about...a few things on it make me give pause but mostly because I just don't know enough about Erfurts to know if the proofs are correct, the photos are low quality so I can't really see if it's been refinished and buffed, etc.

sorry, it allows me to click the photos on my end and it fills the screen. All the numbers are matching and there's a halo on the numbers on the barrel.
It has an imperial eagle and the one under the grip looks like a waffenampt. No import marks on it. I threw out 1400 to him but he declined. From what I saw when I looked at it the finish was original, just looks like something got on the toggle and took some of it off. There's no pitting, more like it turned a brown color.

I didn't take photos myself or I'd have taken better ones, those are what he sent before I looked at it.

This is what I get if I click on any of your pictures; it takes me to postimg.cc and this is what I get:



Notice the resolution in the upper left corner...360x480...that's not even phone screen resolution; there's no blowing it up any bigger than what you see there

Anyway - if it was original and correct like you said? 1600 IMO is a pretty damn good price.

Are you sure it was a waffenampt and not an eagle over N or something like that? Seems weird to have mismatched grips like that unless they were replacements, or someone just bought a random set of grips and replaced the originals for other reasons once it got into the US...

Anyway, if you go to gunbroker and look for 1918 Erfurts - you're not finding one for less than 1800, so...it's up to you, but I wouldn't bother haggling. I'd buy it, if I had the money and wanted it. If you're truly interested in buying it, trying to nickel-and-dime the guy to death will just shut him up and make him look for another buyer.

I'm just an amateur, but have been learning all I can about Lugers the past few months.

As noted, pictures are small & I'm not up to speed on the pre-1935 stuff.  

Based on what I see, I wouldn't give more than $1400 for it & that's a maybe.  For comparison, there is an all correct DWM here locally at a LGS with matching mag & in much better shape for $1700

So for every Erfurt there's like 5 DWMs; Erfurt was a government arsenal while DWM was a private enterprise and Erfurt frames are known to be "rougher" than DWMs. It's not quite apples-to-oranges but it's not far from it, either. You also didn't mention if the DWM was a wartime gun with a date on it, or if it was a commercial import post-WWI (it would be marked GERMANY or MADE IN GERMANY), etc. There's a LOT of variables.

A lot of variables indeed. Every time I think I’ve gotten my head wrapped around how to look at one, I find out I’ve got a lot to learn!

Might be relevant for comparison

https://www.lugerforums.com/threads/what-is-the-value-of-this-luger.130437/#post-1033287