Date of Manufacture 4 PP & PPKS

misterick said:

Any thoughts about that?

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Yes: pics, and serials would help.

Please share some photos


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misterick said:

...Neither have date stamps inside the ejection ports typical of these guns. Any thoughts about that?...

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Yes.

Is that the only place you looked?

M

The HI stands for 1978, so there's your year for that one.
That's Eagle over N (nitro proof, i.e. test-fired), in 1978, and the Ulm proofing house antlers.

Any idea why these are done differently than what I assume is the more common dating inside the ejection port with an actual year number? Thanks.

It's not a common vs. uncommon, just at one time they did it like that (ejection port) and then they did it like that (frame). Mine looks exactly like yours.

misterick said:

Any idea why these are done differently than what I assume is the more common dating inside the ejection port with an actual year number?

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It is really a question how we determine "common". The dating near the trigger took place during 22 years from 1977 to 1999. The earlier way of dating can be noticed between 1961 and 1977 thus only 16 years. If we look at the production figures, we come to a different conclusion of course.

By the way, Walther switched to the letter coding in 1977. The change of the marking position was done in the same year but a little bit later. So the year code HH can appear on either position on the frame on different pistols.

The year coding system was likely initiated not by Walther but by the Ulm Proof House, for whatever reason made sense to them.

M