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Mauser factory records
Who holds this maker's production records today, whether a serial table exists at all, and what it costs to have the archive read them.
For Mauser the answer is definitive and bleak. After the German surrender, French occupying forces dismantled the Oberndorf works — commonly cited at around 60% of the buildings — and the company records were destroyed on the orders of the local French Army commander as part of the disarmament and reparations regime. There is no factory archive to write to. What exists is reconstruction: the Paul Mauser Archive assembled by the researcher Mauro Baudino, and the published literature. Any site offering a Mauser serial lookup is offering a reconstruction from secondary tables, not a record.
Who holds the records today
Covers records destroyed at the end of the Second World War
Serial table published by the maker?
No.
No manufacturer table. Published Mauser serial ranges are reconstructions from production literature, and their reliability varies by model and era.
Archive letter
none — the factory records were destroyed in 1945
Observed 2026-10-14 — confirm with the archive before ordering.
Can a serial number date a Mauser?
From the serial number alone, generally no — and that is the honest answer rather than a gap in this site. There is no published table to compare the number against, so any year you find online for this maker comes from a secondary reconstruction, and those are exactly as reliable as their author.
Dating then rests on what is on the gun: the maker's marking and address, the model and its catalogued period, proof marks and their era, patent dates, and the manufacturer's own model history.
Reference work
Mauser Rifles and Pistols — W. H. B. Smith. Covers both the rifle and C96 pistol lines.
Date a firearm by its serial number
The lookup covers only makers that publish their own browsable chart — and it says which, and cites the threshold behind every result.
Open the serial number lookup