Beretta and Romania went back and forth starting from a 1937 Romanian military trial, and based on Menchini's book, Pages 220-225, the one and only contract was signed on 9 December, 1940. You reference 2nd contract, I'm not sure that would be the proper term.
This is why there are odd balls in the Beretta serial number ranges throughout production of the 19 pistols. Most of the pistols around your serial have the second variation slides.īeretta was known to use every single serial number and if a pistol that was serialized was later rejected for some reason, they would take a later manufactured pistol and give it the serial to plug the hole. In my serial number census, they generally follow a sequential 1-2-3-4 but there are too many of all four mixed in throughout the range to make any broad judgement based on the slide variations.
In regards to your slide being the second of four variations, I don't think the variations fall so cleanly that you can use it for a basis of manufacture or delivery timeframe. Most of the Romanian pistols were used hard and the finish shows. I suspect the frame finish is an honest arsenal job and is part of the history. If your mag does not have Beretta stamped on the spine than it is not post-war. One of the importers actually replaced the barrels with long ones to meet the 1968 GCA points, and then cut the barrels back down once imported. Its a nice pistol, like Yoebuff states, it may be awhile before you find one without import marks AND a matching barrel.
Overall you still have a nice example of a scarce Beretta and as you indicate the majority of the import guns do have replaced barrels so having an all matching is a big plus even with the import mark. However, you mention that the slide is still plum color so it may still be original finish and just dull over age.
So if you say yours appears to have that phosphate finish it probably has been refinished.
As to you finish, it is always difficult to tell in photos. Most ended up in Soviet hands and were indeed reworked at some point and then imported recently into the US, so to find an original one is difficult. You should be happy with it as a placeholder because it may be holding that place for long time! I just this year finally found my all original and non-import marked one. I thought the info was worthy of sharing here also. Additional information to share from another forum.