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Crown over V

German proof marks · Before April 1893.
What it looks like
A crown with a capital V beneath it.
Where it is on the gun
Barrel or receiver.
Date range
Before April 1893.

What it tells you

What this mark authorises you to say

The best single dating clue on an early German gun. The proof law was signed on 19 May 1891, its rules and marks were decreed on 22 June 1892, and it took effect on 1 April 1893. Arms built before it carried no proof at all, so the law grandfather-claused them by requiring them to be submitted and struck with crown-over-V — V for Vorrat, "in stock". Any German gun bearing it was already built when the law arrived.

What it does not tell you

What this mark does NOT say

It gives no year, only a ceiling: the gun predates April 1893. And its absence means nothing at all — nobody stamped it after 1893.

Sources for this page

Every claim above is attributed. The class of source is shown with each one, because a national proof house and an anonymous forum table are not the same evidence — and on proof marks the difference matters.

Related on this site

Makers whose guns carry marks like this:

Reading marks to identify and date a gun

Proof marks name the test and the era. The serial number, where a maker published a browsable chart, can name the year. The lookup cites the threshold behind every result.

Open the serial number lookup

Other german proof marks

Mark descriptions observed and verified 2026-10-14. Proof marks are stamped by hand on guns up to a century old; a photographed stamp and a description in a book are not the same evidence. If a mark on your gun does not match anything here, that is a real answer — see the notes on unidentified marks.