My dear vintage pistol collector friends,
I am posting this information for John Pearson (longtime Walther and vintage WW II era pistol collector). He no longer is a member of NAPCA and is not on the internet so I told him I would be happy to post this great information for him. In the course of the last number of months I have been visiting and corresponding with Mr. Pearson regarding Walther RSHA SS PP and PPK pistols. With his help (he is the author of the groundbreaking series of articles in “Auto Mag” regarding Walther RSHA SS PP and PPK pistols) I am trying to refine and define the various variations of these interesting pistols and their respective variation characteristics. In the course of those conversations and exchanges many items related to Walther PP and PPK Wartime (WWII era) production procedures and expediencies arose so John decided to produce an article for the vintage collecting community, especially those interested in wartime Walther PP and PPK production relative to serial number sequencing and production priorities as it relates to these pistols. It is an interesting and informative and somewhat complicated article (based on forty years of collecting data by Mr. Pearson) and requires careful consideration and pondering to really get what is happening. John has a mathematical background which is obviously a nice resource and skill when it comes to a subject of progressive divergent serial numbers in two different ranges of serial numbers (PP and PPK) and how Walther handled and did this as I said both from a production standpoint and priority standpoint. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this article and find it useful in understanding rather complicated production issues (at least to my simple mind this tends to be complicated to understand). John's sole purpose in producing this article is to further enlighten vintage pistol collectors and try to advance our understanding of some of these production issues and production changes that occurred during and before WWII. This article is or was produced only by Mr. Pearson (he is the sole author) and I DID NOT contribute or do anything for him in that regard--I am ONLY facilitating its introduction to a group of what I think are interested vintage pistol collectors. I believe, thanks to Mr. Pearson, the world of Walther pistol production and vintage Walther pistol collecting (PP and PPK) is perhaps a little less mysterious and perhaps we are a little more enlightened as a result. He has included his telephone number if you want to visit with him or have input or a difference of opinion he would be happy to hear from you.
Happy Holidays my collecting friends, Lloyd in Vegas
WALTHER MODEL PP & PPK PRODUCTION INFORMATION
My name is John Pearson and I have collected German semi-automatic pistols for almost 40 years, with one of my areas of special interest being Walther Model PP and PPK pistols. I have studied the numerous variations of these guns and also analyzed large amounts of serial number data on them. From that research I have discovered some interesting information about the production of these guns, which I am summarizing in this write-up. Hopefully this will clear up some mis-information about these very collectable Walther pistols.
The Walther Company introduced the Model PP (Police Pistol) in 1929, and serial numbers started at 750001. This would become the world’s most successful double action semi-automatic pistol, which at first was available only in caliber 7,65 m/m Browning (what we call the .32 automatic). After the Model PP was in production and showing success, Walther introduced a smaller variation called the PPK (Police Pistol Kriminal) that was presented in Germany as the Detective model. The PPK uses a shorter barrel, slide and magazine, had a one piece plastic wrap-around grip, and was designed for easier concealment. The PPK pistol was introduced into production in 1931/32, apparently starting with serial numbers around 757800. At first these pistols were also marked PP on the slide, but in the 7579xx serial block they began to be marked on the slide with the new designation of PPK. From this point in time both PP and PPK pistols were being assigned serial numbers intermixed in the same range up until almost number 999999, and it is generally not possible to tell by the serial number if a pistol is a PP or PPK Model.
At this point in the discussion let me make the following observation about serial number assignments in the Walther Factory. As orders came into the factory they were assigned serial numbers, starting with the next one available in sequential order. So for example if serial number 795123 was the last number assigned, and an order for 3 PPK pistols was received, they would be assigned serial numbers 795124, 125 and 126. But, Walther did not build the guns in a strict serial number sequence; they built guns in a priority sequence. Thus PPK 795124 might not be built until after a large batch of PP pistols were built in the 801xxx serial block. So when people ask, when a specific pistol was produced, it is frankly not possible to identify the manufacturing sequence or a production date for a specific pistol. We know, for example, that all serial numbers from 820xxx to 844xxx are PPK pistols with the RZM marked slide, but no one can say if a PPK in this range was produced before or after PP number 870xxx.
Sometime in 1938 Walther realized that they were going to have a problem with serial numbers, for their model 8 pistol (a smaller size 6,35 m/m semi-auto pocket pistol that had gone into production in around 1920) was now approaching serial number 750000 (the start of the PP pistol numbers). Keep in mind that Walther had never intentionally produced two guns with the same serial number, and now they needed to create a new serial number range for the Model 8. Their solution was to introduce an alpha suffix to be added to all of their different pistol model serial numbers. They chose the alpha suffix based upon the model of the pistol. Thus for the model 8 it became an A (acht or eight in German), for their Model 9 it became an N (neun for nine in German), and for their Olympia pistols they used the letter O. For the Model PP the suffix became a P, and for the Model PPK the suffix became a K. This change was made for all pistol production in the factory, but contrary to what many collectors believe, it had nothing to do with the fact that PP serial numbers had reached the 1 million range (1000000). To prove this I am listing a number of PP serial numbers which are just below the million range and that include the P suffix. You will note that some of these numbers are in the 99xxx serial block, and one does not include the P suffix, which demonstrates that this change was introduced with some confusion.
The serial numbers I have collected for these first P Suffix PP pistols are as follows:
997951P
997963P
998063P
998957
98977P
99013P
99025P
99210P
99239P
99428P
99453P
99705P
99930P
Note that 999530 is a PPK and does not have a K suffix at this point, proving that it had already been produced before the P and K suffix concept was implemented within Walther. Based upon these serial numbers, it is my assumption that PP number 998957 was also produced before the introduction of the suffix feature. Now notice that the first three numbers listed are in the nine hundred and ninety thousand range, and then the numbers with a P suffix revert to the range of ninety-nine thousand, because the high order 9 digit has been dropped from the serial number. This was done because of a recognized problem with PPK pistols which were already in the million serial block. I will explain this in the next paragraph, as we discuss the introduction of the K suffix on the PPKs.
From this serial number data it is apparent that the P suffix was introduced before the Model PP pistols had reached the million serial block, but at that same time the PPK pistols were already being numbered in the million serial number block. Remember that I said serial numbers were assigned well in advance of when the gun was actually produced, and when the assigned serial numbers for PP and PPK had reached into the million range no change had been made. For the PPK pistols, they had already been produced into the 10067xx serial range before this suffix change took place. It turns out that by this particular point in time apparently tens of thousands of orders had already been received at Walther for Model PP pistols, and numbers for these future PP pistols had been pre-assigned up to around 1072xxx. Thus when the PPK pistols were scheduled to start using the K suffix, the next pre-assigned number was around 10728xx. When a K was added to this number it became too large to fit on the frame, so what Walther did was to modify this number by dropping the high order 0 (zero) to become number 1728xx, and then the K was added. One such gun reported is number 172837K, which is apparently one of the very first PPK pistols with the K suffix added. PPK serials continued from that point with an added K Suffix, with the original assigned number being modified by shortening the number to the one hundred thousand range, rather than any more million range numbers. Of course newly assigned numbers from that point would no longer be in the million serial range.
For the Model PP pistols there had also been a large number of million range numbers already pre-assigned for their production. But since the change over to the P suffix took place just before the million serial was reached for PP pistols, Walther did not produce any PP pistols with a million range number. Like with the PPK numbers, for PP pistols they shortened the pre-assigned million range numbers to a number in the one hundred thousand range. For example, the originally assigned PP number of 1000249 became 100249P, etc. It is for this reason that many collectors believed that the suffix was introduced at the million serial number, but I have shown that it was not. I hope that all of this is understandable as you reread the above narrative. Also, keep in mind it was never the intention for Walther to produce two guns with the same serial number, so there will only be one pistol serial number with either a P or a K suffix. There might be a few mistakes made by the factory which resulted in applying duplicate numbers to guns, but most “duplicate” serial numbers are actually reporting errors by collectors or those who do the data base processing.
The next important thing to understand is that PP number 997951P was produced at essentially the same time as PPK number 172837K, thus there is a “spread” of some 75,000 serial numbers difference between the PP being produced and the PPK being produced at this point in time. Remember this point, for that means that PP number 172500P was made many months after PPK number 172837K. Over time this “spread” will even increase more. Also, once the War had started Walther received far more orders for PP pistols than PPK pistols. Based on my research, during the War the Walther Factory produced a percentage mix of roughly 60% PP pistols and 40% PPK pistols.
Up until this point we have been talking about commercial quality Model PP and PPK pistols. It was probably in 1941 that Walther made a number of changes to PP and PPK pistols. These changes were not all made at once, and included the following in no particular order: The long overhang tang frame was introduced, the chamber was left blue rather than bright, the safety lever and extractor were standard blue rather than the fire blue finish, and the full serial number now became standard on the right side of the slide. Up until this point in production, for most guns only the last three digits of the frame serial number of the pistol were scratched on the inside of the slide. These changes first appeared for PPK pistols in the 33x,xxxK serial range, and for the PP pistols in the 22x,xxxP serial range. If we assume that these changes took place for both the PP and PPK at the same time, this reveals that the “spread” I had previously discussed had now increased to 110,000 serial numbers.
The next big change was to eliminate the high polished finish on the guns and to instead use what we collectors have come to call a military or milled finish. The blue applied was probably the same, but since the metal parts were no longer given a high polish finish first, the milled finish blue looks quite different. For the PPK pistols this change was in effect by the 355xxxK range, and for the PP pistols this change was in effect by the 235xxxP range. It must be noted that there is a great deal of overlap with this changeover to the milled finish, and guns covering a range of thousands of numbers will be intermixed with both high polish and milled finish examples. This can again be explained by the fact that guns were being produced in priority sequence and thus serial numbered “out of order”.
Probably not too long after the introduction of the milled finish, certainly by 1943, production of the Model PPK began to noticeably slow down. For example, let us look at police marked guns, which changed over to the Eagle F (EF) marking late in the War. The first Police EF Model PP guns are found in the range of 354xxxP, and for the PPK they are first found in the range 423xxxK. Notice that this is only a “spread” of some 70,000 serial numbers, showing that PPK production by that point had slowed way down. We know that production of the PPK Model did not continue until the end of the War because there are no PPK pistols with the Walther “ac” code applied to the slide instead of the full legend markings. For the PP pistols we first see the “ac” slide marking by serial range 365xxxP. I do not know the exact date of the introduction of the “ac” slide marking, but it is assumed to have been by January 1945. The question has often been asked, when did PPK production essentially end, and I can not give any precise answer to that question. But it is very likely that PPK production ended in 1944, with the last few thousand PPK pistols produced using left over parts, such as aluminum frames which had been produced years earlier and then apparently put into storage. This is known because none of these late War alloy frames have the long overhang tang feature. We know that PP production had essentially ended by serial 397000P, which is assumed to have been when the War ended. The highest serial numbers for the PPK models are found in the range 431xxxK (the highest I have recorded is number 431097K), revealing a “spread” of only 34,000.
The question has also been asked whether Walther produced guns and serial numbered them, but did not proof them and apply the final finish until later. It is true that Walther did do some of their factory engraving on guns and then put them into storage without ever completing them, but I have seen no evidence that this “storage” concept was ever done for standard production guns. We do find guns out of sequence, as for example with Eagle N proofed guns appearing before some higher numbered Crown N guns. But I attribute this to their priority production concept, where serial numbers were assigned to guns and then the actual production of those guns was delayed until later on, after the Eagle N proof mark had begun being used (early in 1940 - some experts say January 1940 and others say April 1940). I do not believe that any of these “out of sequence” guns were completed and put on the shelf to later get the Eagle N proof. It is my belief that Walther produced a gun with the serial number that had originally been assigned to it, and this is how “out of sequence” guns exist. All of this information means that during a given day on the Walther assembly line there could be Walther PP pistols that were 10,000 serial numbers apart, and that at the same time there could be a PPK pistol being manufactured that is 110,000 numbers higher. I know that this sounds crazy, but that is what the data proves was actually happening.
I hope all of this will be informative and useful to Walther collectors. The information that I have presented in this article was formed over many years of research and is based upon lots of real world data. I do not claim to be perfect but I believe that the information that I have presented here is quite accurate. If you have any questions you can reach me not on the internet but by telephone at (818) 769-3509, West Coast Time.