Originally Posted by DCWilson

Welcome to the forum. Even if your gun is not a prewar snubnose, it is still a very desirable gun. It does have the improved postwar hammer safety block, but it also has the prewar long action that was retired in early 1948. That's why it and others like it but with longer barrels are sometimes called transitional models.

Those stocks in that condition are valuable in their own right. You can probably find some 1946-1948 round butt stocks that would fit your gun and make it a little more "chronologically consistent." The stocks on it now are, as noted, about a century old and in very nice shape. You may find a penciled serial number on the inside surface of the right cheek piece (as S&W referred to the stock panels). Let us know what it is and we can give you some basic info about the gun they were originally installed on.

Excellent score. I like the Colt, too.