The Smith & Wesson Historical Foundation was founded in 2007 by Ray and Sheryl Cheely with the major mission of preserving the paper historical records of S&W that are housed at the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts. Preservation of these records is critical to the collecting of S&W firearms as many of these records are used to create factory letters. It was decided to digitize and index these records in order to preserve them and also to make them "searchable" via computer. The period 1935-1941 was chosen as a place to start since Roy Jinks was quite familiar with the content of these records and they also cover the period of the introduction of the ".357" Registered Magnum that has become very popular with collectors.

I am happy to say the digitizing and indexing of the approximately 60,000 records in this period are now complete. The process took over eight months and cost approximately $217,000.

The S&W Historical Foundation is now accepting requests for letters for S&W firearms shipped during the period, 1935-1941. Go to our website at swhf to find out the process and cost. You can also learn more about our foundation and see examples of records that have been digitized.

If we research your firearm and do not find any records, there is no charge.

In addition, we are in the process of the raising the funds to digitize and index the records in the next period, namely, 1930-1934. The estimate to complete this five year period is approximately $220,000, so we need your help in raising this money. The website also tells you how to become a member of the S&WHF, or how to make a tax deductible donation as the S&WHF is a charity under section 501(c)(3).

The successful digitizing and indexing of the records of S&W will ensure they are available to current and future generations of collectors of S&W firearms.

Thank you for your interest and support.

Bill Cross
Chairman, S&WHF