Some speculation on Armorers parts.

Moderators- Please bare with me as I am not quite sure where to place this posting.
Please feel free to move this post to whichever thread is correct.

I posted this on the P38 Forum and want to post this here as well. It may be of interest to fellow collectors.

I attended a Forum meeting at SoS and Armorers parts became a topic of discussion. There was some speculation concerning the “S” stamping on German Armorers parts. I had previously found in a Thesaurus some examples of German words that may have been abbreviated by the factory.
I collect K98k Armorers parts and have speculated on the use of the “S” marking seen on early German Armorers parts. I speculated its use, because we see so many examples wherein the “S” can be seen stuck in all different manner of positions, and with the use of the various types of Alphabetical fonts not always used on the weapons by the same maker of the part.

Here are some examples below from an online German- English Thesaurus that may be of interest.

1). When I looked up the word “substitute” on the website below, this comes up:
n] A person or thing that takes or can take the place of another =
Substituieren [n], Substitution [n], Stellvertreter

2). When I looked up the word “replacement” on the website below, this comes up:
n] A person or thing that takes or can take the place of another =
Substituieren [n], Substitution [n], Stellvertreter [n]

Using the German Thesaurus, it appears that the word “Ersatz” along with some others, is not the only word that can be used for either the German word meaning “replacement” or “substitute”.

I had previously found an example of the German word “Stellvertreter” being used in reference with Metal castings or parts. Unfortunatly, I cannot remember where I had found it used. I am pursuing, though not avidly, more information concerning the use of the letter “S” in conjunction with some German WK2 codes on Armorers parts. The use of the Letter “S” may very well be probably just part of a code, but this keeps me out of trouble.

Please keep in mind this is pure speculation on my part.

I wanted to post this on this forum as I have had some conversations in the past with both Bruce and Mike concerning this subject. If anyone has an Original manufactures or depot maint. German TM on the K98k that they'd be willing to share , please let me know.

Below is one of many links to On-line language Thesaurus’s. I used this particular site to gain the information of the two examples listed above.

http://lookwayup.com/lwu.exe/lwu/d?s=f& ... cement#Deu


Thanks all for your patience,

Don

Well its at least as good speculation as every "S" representing Simson Suhl... all in an attempt to hide rearmament from inspectors that didn't exist after January 1927 and from a process that didn't exist after 1931 (there was no oversight at all after 1931- technically it existed under a committee under the League of Nations but the League was as resolute and forceful as the UN is today.. actually the League might have been worse, - marginally)

Clarification- Simson Suhl didn't exist after 1935 (actually by late 1933 it was pretty much under nazi control) however some speculate that every "S" marking, every code uses an "S" to hide the manufacturer under the cloak of the Simson Suhl contract. Of course this suggests an incredible stupidity on the part of the French and British (the French especially were well informed upon events in Germany) and as with many things in German military rifle study takes a very superficial view of interwar history.