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General Mauser Rifle Questions / Gem.98 Serial Number Markings
« on: January 22, 2021, 12:06:08 PM »I have a very early Gem.98 Mauser dated 1906, serial number 4808 "d", stamped on the left side of the receiver. It was made by Mauser in Oberndorf Germany. Production runs were in lots of 10,000 and a rifle's serial number included an alphabetic letter to identify the lot number. In this case, my rifle is lot number "4" (a, b, c, "d", etc.) making it the 44,808 rifle manufactured. Mauser's Parent, DWM, received a German Army High Command order in 1905 for 500,000 rifles. Its firms, Mauser in Oberndorf, was to manufacture 290,000 and, its firm Ludwig Loewe in Berlin, was to manufacture 210,000. Once the alphabet of 24 letters was completed it would double up on the alphabet letter, i.e., aa, bb, cc, etc.
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[/size]My question is, I understand that the letter " j" was not used. Was there any other letter that was not used when German manufactures were [/size]assigning a [/size]serial number? [/size]In doing the history check on my military rifle, I'm interested in how serial numbers were assigned. The full alphabet represents 240,000 units.