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Old 07-12-2017, 08:07 AM
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JSR III JSR III is offline
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Let me give you another data point. My 1955 Target bears s/n S144516 which is 23 units ahead of your beauty. The records show that mine shipped in January 1958.
And mine is S159461 and shipped in February of 1958, almost 15,000 numbers higher, so go figure.

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I think we all would like to know more about the method of allocation S&W used for serial numbers. Intuitively we think guns are manufactured in serial number sequence. Evidently that's not the case with S&W, especially since serial number blocks were allocated among different models of revolvers.
S&W did manufacture guns in serial number sequence however, we never know exactly how many are in any given block of numbers because it would have been based on need or demand for a given model. They could make as few as 50 or as many as 5,000. Add to that the fact that they deliberately jumped around within serial number blocks just to keep the competition guessing and the whole thing gets confusing. Also you must remember that the dates that Roy Jinks and the many books that have copied his information are based on use shipping dates and not date of manufacture.

Add to that the fact that guns were stored in a cage awaiting shipment and the shipping folks cared not what serial number gun that they were grabbing to fill an order. As long as the serial number was recorded in the outgoing shipping log, inventory was controlled. It is only we collectors that need to have precise dates for each model and expect that guns went out in some sequential order. NOT THE CASE.

We see numerous times where a lower serial numbered gun has shipped out days, months or even years after a higher number.

As mentioned, you also have different models using close serial number blocks. My S159461 1955 .45 target is only 2 digits higher than say S159459 which could have been the last number used in a group of .44 magnums????
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