Hello Pat ,
Your box with the sawfish fastener sounds very interesting ! can you send us a picture of this ? Besides the 1940 version there is the original 1922 and 1923 version also , I like these 2 versions better as they have amore better looking cover than the 1940 version . I have in my 1940 version a " sonder heft " or special edition booklet that was inserted in the book and has a short history of submarine building at Germania werft and pictures of famous u-boat captains and LI's with copies of their hand writen praise of the Germania built boats . There are pictures with signatures of Willenbrock ,Korth , Kuppisch ,Prien , Schepke , endrass , Rollmann , Schultze , pluse several others .
I agree with you that this is a fantastic book and a must for all u-boat book collectors , even if you cannot read a word of German !