This mid-WWI German Artillery Luger pistol has been highly modified and equipped with an experimental "key sear/safety" slot mounted on the top of the side plate. All the various Luger pistols suffered from significant safety based wear on the exposed sear bar/side plate design. These Lugers could and did on occasion accidentally fire when the sear was depressed despite the fact that the safety was engaged. It appears DWM was experimenting with the development of a mechanism that would lock the sear bar to prevent the sear from being depressed. This design was done in the late 1919/20 and pre-dates the later "sear safety" mechanism introduced in 1921/22. This pistol's side plate is two pieces, and the top-half is pinned to the side of the barrel extension. The lower portion is still removable and is attached to the receiver. A slot has been cut into the upper portion of the side plate to prevent accidental discharge. A rotating/locking key is installed through this slot in the side plate and locked in place. This prevents the pistol from being cocked even if there is a loaded magazine in the pistol and/or if the safety lever is engaged. When removed, the Luger will load and fire in a normal fashion. Several examples of this design have surfaced over the years, but the design was never implemented on a large production basis. It has the early style magazine safety bar on the frame under the grip that extends to the rear of the trigger, a fixed front sight, the correct tangent rear sight graduated 100-800 meters, standard "GESICHERT" and "GELADEN" markings, and is complete with a standard WWI tin plated magazine with a wooden base marked "29/d/+". The small piece that sat behind the trigger has been clipped on this example. The remainder of the pistol appears to be standard in all respects. It has a faint 1916 dated chamber area and standard "DWM" marked front toggle. The right side of the barrel extension has the standard Crown/Script letter proofs next to a single Imperial Eagle firing proof. It has been numbered in the military manner.