Late war Bf 109 pictures source

[Revi16]

Originally Posted by Revi16

Is it possible that the photo shows a five digit W.Nr.? If the 4"1"3861 is under the red arrow, is there space enough for the first digit to be a 4?

In attached photo, there are both five and six digit W.Nr.'s with approximate same style font and size. The six digit W.Nr. goes all the way back to the rudder hinge taking up the entire space. (I understand that font/size can make a difference.)

Originally Posted by Marc-André Haldimann

Rasmussen,

Thanks for your solution; if this is indeed W.Nr. 413 861, we have here the highest Erla built Bf 109 G-6 W.Nr. I know of.

Revi16,

thanks for your hypothesis too. IMHO, we have a classic 6 digits W.Nr., as Erla often painted or oversprayed the first digit on the front edge of the tail, like for W.Nr. 463 156 "Schwarze 63" at Salzburg-Maxglan; in this case, the last digit being a "1", they had even room to spare...

Cheers
Marc

Thx for your response. I'm not trying to beat a dead horse, but am still a bit confused with font size and space allocation.(I'm sure none of this was a priority during production. )

Below is 413721 which takes up the entire space on the vertical stab..(Found at German Airfield in Metz, France. Dec. 20 ,1944)
Both 413721 & 413861 have the same number of 1's in the W.Nr., wouldn't they both take up the same amount of space?

Additionally there appears to be a different font used for the last 1 in each of the above W.Nr's, perhaps my answer.

Regards,