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Walther 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.
Walther's own company history is the source, and it is unusually direct about the loss. The factory was destroyed in the Second World War and Zella-Mehlis fell inside the Soviet occupation zone. Fritz Walther was left with almost nothing: by the company's own account, a thin folder of design drawings and the rights to more than eighty patents was all he was able to save. Production restarted at Ulm in 1953, and the pre-war pistols — the PP and PPK that collectors most want dated — sit on the far side of that rupture. Walther is now owned by Umarex, and there is no archive service for the Zella-Mehlis era.
Who holds the records today
Covers pre-1945 records lost with the Zella-Mehlis factory
Serial table published by the maker?
No.
No manufacturer table for the pre-war pistols, and the widely posted Walther serial tables disagree with each other by years on the same number.
Archive letter
Observed 2026-10-14 — confirm with the archive before ordering.
Can a serial number date a Walther?
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
Walther — A German Success Story — Kersten, Schiller & Eichstädt. Two volumes, 1,073 pages, published 2012 for the company's 125th anniversary. Structured by model, with data tables.
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