I have the las two PP that were made in the mid 80s: 78299 and 78300. I would think that this one was made in the mid 70s. ABO and myself bought everything that was left at the plant: 895 PPK/S, 2 PPK/S in .380 hard nickel finish, 10 PP plus one PP Sport that ABO got. I had 395 PPK/S IN "380 and all 10 pp in .380, on hard finish. The history of the French manufactured Walters is this:
After the War, Mr Walter had orders for the West German police but no factory. He did bring the tooling. Manufacture du Rhin which became Manurhin, was across the border in Mulhouse. A handshake deal was arranged around 1950 for Manufacture du Rhin to make all the parts and to be assembled in West Germany. In the late 50s and early 60s, Manufacture du Rhin sold French made PPK, PPK/S (after 1968) and PP in the US. At some point in the 70s, all Walters were manufactured and assembled, boxed and test fired in France. When the tooling wore out in the late 80, Walter gave a license to build to Interarms in Virginia to manufacture. They were investment cast and not made of forgings. They had not a true dark shinny black finish. The trigger pulls were hard and accuracy poor. I had an excellent book on the history of the PP, PPK and PPK/S. I will try to find it later this week.
