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Information, photos, references, and trivia on the WW2 Walther P.38 and post-war P38 pistol. If you wish to link to this page, please link only to the main page, not sub-pages or documents. Please do not rip off my PDF files or pictures for your own site. Thanks.

Updated 20 Feb 2014 17:33 -0800

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The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach

Most Recent updates:

Two more "BTH12" pistols have been reported. See "BTH12" under "Pistols"

Added "When was my post-war pistol made?" to "Information"

Added another late date AC frame pistol to "Pistols"

Added some late war pistols to "Pistols"

The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach

Pistols

Post-war volume I

Post-war parts gun, two guns in .30 Luger, and a high-polish gun.

Late date AC frame variation. Warren Buxton calls these the '"oddballs of oddballs." Who made these - and when?

byf44 FN slide. Post-war volume II

P38 surplus, P1 surplus, P38 commercial, and P4 surplus guns.

Consecutive serial number SVW-45s. Consecutive serial number SVW-46s. Post-war P38 in 7.65mm Parabellum. East German P.38s. Reworked wartime ac40, ac44, and an East German manufactured gun.
Steel frame P38 from Earl's Repair Service.

ac45 matching "c" block.

 

Post-war P.38 in 5.6mm (.22 LR).

 

A Zero series and "a" prefix Spreewerk reworked for use in post-war East Germany.
The Czechoslovakian Vz46. byf44 police issue with British markings.

 

Commemorative "100 Jahre" P38 marking the 100th year anniversary of Walther. Unknown BTH12 marking on several P.38s.
Norwegian military surplus P38. Mixmaster P.38 with WW2 German, East German, Czech, and British markings. The ultra-rare "ac no-date" - and how to spot a fake. Some things you can do to a P.38. Please don't!

WARNING: disturbing!

French Mausers 1945 to 1946. Gotterdammerung - some pistols from the last months of the war. Another version of the late date AC frame pistol.  

The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach

Information

Pistol Information

An excellent article by Peter Kokalis on the wartime P.38 pistol can be found here, and another article on the post-war P38 here.

My post-war pistol has no date or date code - about when was it manufactured? You can get a rough estimate based upon these observed pistols.

Need to replace a broken WW2 slide part with a post-war part, and don't know if the new part will fit? Read the slide part compatibility guide. Note: this information is intended as a guide only. I am not a gunsmith. If you do not have working knowledge of the P.38 pistol, consult a competent gunsmith before attempting to effect repairs to your P.38.

Over the long term, will oil cause bakelite grips to deteriorate? An attempt to find out starts here. And continues after one year... and finally ends at three plus years.

Atarian's quick reference magazine guide. Helps to identify which magazine is correct for your pistol.

Atarian's post-war reproduction and aftermarket grip guide. Some of the currently available non-World War II grips for the P.38.

Can a "dipped" pistol be "un-dipped?" The answer is yes, and quite successfully. Take a look at zero series cyq serial number 030.

What's that 13 digit number on my pistol and/or magazine?

 

Drawings and Manuals

P38 Owner's Manual  (multilingual - 4.8 MB). P38 Owner's Manual v2 (multilingual - 6.2 MB). P38 Operating Instructions (multilingual - 1.2 MB, source: Walther Germany). P38 Owner's Manual (1 MB, source: Interarms(?)). P38 Owner's Manual (edited for clarity - Thanks to Quentin for providing this).

German military drawings of the 9mm Patrone: page 1, page 2, page 3, and page 4.

P.38 manual from 1940 (German) - Thanks to Johan and Ron Clarin for providing this.

P.38 illustrated parts breakdown (German - 95KB, source: Walther Germany).

Explanation of the markings on a post-war P38/P1 (source: Federal Foreign Office – Division 241, Germany).

 

Time Wasters

Test your P.38 knowledge with the P.38 quiz!

bullet one
bullet two
bullet three
bullet four (new!)

Auction Antics - Fantastic stories and overpriced pistols:

bullet Most expensive P.38 ever listed (this was a typo...)
bullet Second most expensive P.38 (...that this genius later referenced!)
bullet Best story/crappiest p.38 ever?

 

Articles and Advertisements

Information on the P.38 from the 2008 Walther catalog.

The Defense Intelligence Agency's Small Caliber Ammunition Identification Guide. German ammunition section (213kb) or the entire document (10.1Mb).

Small arms section of the Handbook on German Military Forces.

P.38 converted to .45 ACP.

1964 Luger parts list and prices.

1964 P38 parts list and prices.

Pricing of Stoeger's Mod HPs and Lugers (1948).

1970 Interarms P38 advertisement.

Stoeger's guide to World War II pistols circa 1948 (page 1, page 2).

 

Miscellaneous

A baker's dozen of Walther post-war slide legend variations (this is far from all-inclusive).

Here's what a P.38 frame looks like before the machining process begins.

Is Walther still making the P.38?

Information Exchange Pursuant to the OSCE Document on Small Arms and Light Weapons 2003, 2008, 2010. Note in 2002 the United States was by far the largest importer of German "Revolvers and Self-Loading Pistols" with 1,040,985 imported (of 1,082,797 - the balance of 41,812 or about 4% going to 20 other countries), while the Germans destroyed only 5,666 "surplus" pistols. In 2009 the US imported none and 17,520 surplus pistols were destroyed (none were exported to any country). See Annexes 2 and 3.

 

Patent Information

Fritz Walther's "automatic pistol," patent number 2135992 dated November 8, 1938 (English).

Fritz Walther's "automatic firearm," patent number 2145328 dated January 31, 1939 (English).

Walther pistol patents 1926 to 1942 (German).

The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach Patent Date

Page Number

433937 Sept. 1926 1 2 3 4 5
664926 Sept. 1938 1 2 3    
677094 June 1939 1 2 3 4 5
678067 July 1939 1 2 3    
706038 May 1941 1 2 3    
715176 Dec. 1941 1 2 3 4 5
721702 June 1942 1 2 3 4 5
722332 July 1942 1 2 3 4 5
726501 Oct. 1942 1 2 3 4 5

The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach

Interarms Catalogs

Interarms was a long-time importer of products from Walther and many other manufacturers. Browse some of their catalogs here.

 

The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach Page

On the road, the mark became armor of another kind. People expected vulnerability; they expected explanation. She offered neither. Where questions pressed, she answered with a tilted head or a blade flicker; when mockery rose, she cut it down with the kind of efficiency that made men rethink jokes for a generation. To mock her was to misunderstand the economy of power: a woman who carried scandal so openly stole its sting. The village whisperers learned that they had less control than they imagined; the mark transformed objectification into agency.

Her presence changed how people navigated their own boundaries. Women found resolve seeing her; a baker’s daughter decided to take sword lessons after watching the knight laugh openly in the marketplace. A widower remembered joy. Even a magistrate—who had once passed laws on propriety—halted when she saluted him and saw, plainly, that dignity did not reside in erasing desire but in choosing it.

People will always gossip about what they do not understand. The true scandal, perhaps, is not the presence of a lewd mark but a woman who claims her body and her stories so plainly that the world must rearrange its expectations to accommodate her. She carried that rearrangement like a banner—a small, beautiful defiance that said, without apology: I am more than what you think you see. The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach

She rode into village markets and moonlit courtyards the way storms arrive—sudden, unmistakable, and impossible to ignore. Steel glinted from her shoulders; her banner was plain, her armor worn into a comfortable, dangerous silhouette. Yet what whispered through taverns and lingered in the mouths of gawkers wasn’t the cut of her helm or the way her gauntleted hands handled a blade. It was the mark on her exposed midriff: a small, scandalous symbol—crimson and stubborn—half-hidden beneath her breastplate, a private brazier at the edge of propriety.

There were private hours when she traced its curve and let memory unfurl—no regret, only stories. The mark reminded her of a night that had been more alive than any campaign: laughter that tasted of brandy and rain, small rebellions traded in kisses, a promise not of ownership but of witnessing. For one who had been taught to measure worth by banners and land, that memory was a rebellion too. On the road, the mark became armor of another kind

In the end, the mark remained on her skin—faded in places, stubborn in others. It weathered with her. The story it sparked continued to morph: in one town she was a scandalous curiosity; in another, a patron saint of messy human truths. But the truth that mattered—unsentimental, uncompromising—was simple: she chose the mark, she chose her life, and she refused to let others write the margin notes of her body.

That mark became a rumor seed. People embroidered stories around it. Some said it was a brand from a noble’s pastime; others swore it was the sigil of a secret cult. Children dared one another to point it out; scholars peered at portraits and ancient rolls, searching for precedent. But the mark was not the story’s heart—it was a hinge. Where questions pressed, she answered with a tilted

Legends need shape. The poets carved her into paradox: modesty and boldness braided together, a warrior who refused the world’s simple vocabulary for labeling. Some wanted to sanitize her into a cautionary tale: virtue fallen, power undone. Others attempted to make her a trophy: a story of conquest that stripped her of choice. She resisted both by living between labels. Her autonomy was a blade sharper than any she carried.

The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach

Only YOU can keep it alive!

The Female Knight With A Lewd Mark On Her Stomach