- SMITH AND WESSON MODEL 18 3 SERIAL NUMBERS SERIAL NUMBER
- SMITH AND WESSON MODEL 18 3 SERIAL NUMBERS SERIAL
SMITH AND WESSON MODEL 18 3 SERIAL NUMBERS SERIAL
There are several sets of these books, because there wereĭifferent models with the same serial numbers. These were ( and perhaps still are)īound volumes that were pre-printed with serial numbers, in numerical Researching serial numbers, by the historian, I read way too much into serial numbers! :)ī D Green has it right. So maybe I should rephrase the first sentence of that last paragraph. The guy who owned K137 wouldn't sell it to me, nor would the owner of K188. And I was mad at Blake (one of our posters) because he let K141 escape to an unwashed heathen owner. All I've managed to score are K155 and K166. He mercilessly lofts it over my head because he located it in a chicken coop, and because it has K117 on the underside. Two reasons, he doesn't clean his guns, and the CCW is new/pristine, and its just a cool number. Younger son covets the one with a "CCW" prefix. I've done it before and I'll do it again. A lot of are willing to pay a premium, some time a multiple of fair market, just to obtain a desireable number. We seem to read way to much into serial numbers. I've got a beautiful early Centennial that came back that way. Only to get one back that says "Open on Company books." We have no idea what that phrase really means, but probably any of a number of things, including stolen (lunchbox guns), destroyed during production, pulled out for some reason and never shipped or sold, given to an employee for whatever reason, etc. Its not unusual for one of us to blow our meager allowances on letters. Its an internal control issue.īut we also find guns from time to time where the factory has no records of them existing. Its probably safe to say many gun frames were sequentially numbered at about the same time. We just don't know and Roy hasn't indicated if records exist of various guns in various stages.
SMITH AND WESSON MODEL 18 3 SERIAL NUMBERS SERIAL NUMBER
Probably in the vault.Īll an adjacent serial number means is that the guns were probably in production at the same time, maybe even side by side for a few steps in the production process, maybe separated on different racks, too. But there was a time frame where you almost couldn't give away a Heavy Duty or Outdoorsman. We also know S&W made some ugly ducklings. Even if there isn't a ready and willing customer. Its just cheaper and easier to build the same configuration guns at the same time. They also completed some batch blocks of guns. If they have a completed gun, and a willing customer, they ship it. They, like all other business entities have cash flow problems and concerns. It may be important that those may be the same day, or a date years later. The letters we beg from Roy indicate another date, the date they're shipped from the vault. It doesn't mean they were all completed the same day or week, just that someone went to the effort to assure they had similar numbers.įrom what I can glean from the books on the subject, S&W logs in guns when they move from production/inspection to the "vault", the place where they're shipped from. It means if they want to build a comemmorative, all the guns have sequential numbers. S&W is known to hold blocks of numbers for some purposes. Its also probably important that those methods may have changed over time (remember, they've been in business for a while.) Part of our confusion comes from us not having a clear idea of how and when they were assigned, and how and when assembly numbers were assigned. We sometimes debate their efficiency at tracking serials.