Description
Deutsche Werke Ortgies 7.65 (32acp) Excellent condition. Rare button safety model.
Fifth Variant (Fourth Address). (Large frame serial numbers 56500? – 73119? Small frame 5500? – 47800?) The inscription on the large frame guns was changed back to two lines as follows:
DEUTSCHE WERKE AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT – WERK ERFURT
ORTGIES’ PATENT
This inscription is in all capital sans-serif non-italic characters. The first iteration of this variant retains the HO grip medallion. At this time, the second variation of the HO grip medallion began to appear–the early medallions had a wide ring around the outside, with a much thinner ring inside it, and a stippled background. The later medallions had only a single wide ring and a flat background.
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Somewhere around serial number 66500 a new grip medallion was introduced with a couchant cat or lion with its tail curving upward over its head to form a stylized letter D. Additionally the nitro proof mark on the slide was moved to above the extractor, behind the ejection port. Koelliker refers to these pistols as the Fourth Address (transition). At some point the magazines began to be stamped with this new trade-mark instead of the HO monogram, but we do not know exactly when.* The 6.35mm guns continued to have the HO grip medallions into the 20 ,000 range, and both styles may be found between 22,000 and 25,000. We find the later (Sixth Variant) inscriptions on some earlier guns, and vice versa, so there may have been a period in which both inscriptions were used, or possibly earlier slides were put on later production frames.
The inscription on the small frame guns was in serif characters:
DEUTSCHE WERKE AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT – WERK ERFURT
ORTGIES’ PATENT
