German 1907 8,8cm SK L/30 Cartridge Case

[peregrinvs]

I acquired this on the same day as the Indian 13PR case. A little out of my core collecting themes, but it was very temptingly priced...😉

 

It’s a Kaiserliche Marine case made in July 1907. These often get bigged up as U-Boat gun cases. It’s true that some U-Boats were fitted with this type of gun, but they were also used on surface ships and in shore batteries. Interestingly, the same case design was used for the 8,8cm guns fitted to some WWII U-Boats.

 

I’m trying to ID the markings at the 12 o’clock position. A chap on the BOCN forum opined that the ‘III’ marking means three reloads, but a lot of other cases I’ve seen online have the same marking, so I’m not sure. Nobody seemed to know what the crossed through circle symbol means, so I thought I’d ask here as well. I’ve also seen a dot in a circle symbol on other cases - sometimes with two digit reload date numbers. Other than the markings at 12 o’clock, the headstamps are quite faint, which may mean the base got resized when reloaded.