I recently sold my Pieper Bayard, virtually identical to the pictured Pieper, except that mine was highly engraved in the English rose & scroll style - even the Anson/Purdey forearm release and the safety were engraved. And it had a classic Prince of Wales grip.
I bought it as a well-made shooter at a very good price because of the "thru-cheeks" cross-bolt repair. Transpires that "repair' is a factory original feature - which I found on littlegun's Belgian site. Mine had "DEMI-BLOC" printed on the left barrel at 9 o'clock, right under the name Bayard. And it was a standard "chopper-lump" barrel joint. The pictured Pieper has DEMI BLOC printed transversely across the barrel top....partially seen on two different pics. Mine also had "For Smokeless Powder" in English on the barrel rib, about eight inches forward of the standing breech. I did not recognize anything anywhere that might have indicated "grade".
I could see no letter date code on my barrel flats. However, there was a five digit number "02426" on the barrel flats, and it is NOT the serial number. I speculate it IS a date code, representing the twenty-fourth day of 1926. WWW lore has it that Belgian guns had a letter date code starting in 1924. Maybe Pieper was a big enough concern that it figured it could march to its own beat regarding the date code....or maybe this five digit "date code" was acceptable back in 1926....I don't know.
