Group, I little more background for this thread on Cooper:
Several years after Ray Cheely bought the gun from me, he asked me to write him my recollection of the gun's history and connection to Gary Cooper, etc. Here's a condensation of what I wrote Ray: ( Aug. 11,2007 )

Ray & Sheryl, This is what I can recall about Gary Cooper's .357 Registered Magnum, serial number 53692, Registered number 2960. John Beckwith and I operated an antique gun store in Encinitas, CA. from the 60s to 1985., called " John Beckwith's Guns & Relics." Dr. Ken Craig, a friend of John's and mine and fellow S&W collector, was John's dentist. John was well known in the gun fraternity and had been connected to the movie business in the 1930s and knew most of the Hollywood crowd. The store was just north of the Del Mar Race Track ("Where the Turf Meets the Surf") and quite a few famous actors and Hollywood luminaries visited the store when at the track or on their trips to TiJuana. It was a watering hole and mecca for after hours get togethers by the Rich & Famous of the Hollywood scene. I recall times when Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, John Wayne, Jimmy Durante, Leo Carillo ( who lived nearby), Buddy Hackett, Howard Hawks, Bing Crosby, etc., who were all gun collectors, happened by while I was there. (Cooper had already passed away by the time we opened the store )
At that time, Kerrs' Gun store in Hollywood was the place where all the Hollywood crowd bought their guns & gear. You could spend a few hours there and see any number of movie people. The manager there was a friend of ours named Gerry Knight. About early 1962, Gerry told us that the store was going to buy all the Gary Cooper gun collection of 26 guns from Cooper's widow Rocky Cooper. In the collection were two S&Ws, a K 22 and the Reg. Mag. My gun fund was rather low at the time, being a Civil Servant with wife and 4 kids, so Ken Craig bought the Reg. Mag. from Kerrs. Included with the purchase, was a holster I marked "Cooper" made by Arvo Ojala. Arvo was a friend of mine and I recognized the holster as coming from his shop, and I showed the holster to Arvo several years later and he verified it as one made for Cooper. I later learned that Warren F " Andy" Anderson, an employee of Ojalas and also a friend of mine, actually made the holster for Cooper sometime in the mid 1950s. There was some conflict between Andy and Arvo as to who really invented the steel lined quick draw holster that Arvo patented. Andy left Arvo's shop and opened his own shop in Hollywood in 1957, called " The Gunfighter" and became a mecca for the Hollywood actors, including Gary Cooper, who were appearing in the western movies & TV series popular at the time. ( The opening scene in "Gunsmoke" shows Matt Dillon (James Arness) in a shoot out with a gunslinger. That gunslinger is Arvo Ojala.) They all learned their quick draw skills from Arvo or Andy. Gary's Reg. Mag. stayed in Ken Craigs collection until I made arrangements to buy part of his collection and broker the rest. I had the gun for awhile until you bought it from me at the S&WCA meeting in Scottsdale. As you know the gun was shipped to W.H.Hoegee & Co., Los Angeles, CA., the S&W distributor, on Sept. 20, 1937. Quite a few west coast shipped Reg. Mags., including Jimmy Stewart's R.M. # 100, went through Hoegees or Calif. Hardware Co. as they were the two major S&W distributors . Kerr's and other gun shops got their inventory from those two wholesalers. I was never able to get any evidence that Gary Cooper ordered the gun from S&W. My assumption is that he bought it from Kerr's inventory, as he did many of his guns. That's all I can recall now from my notes and files regarding Gary Cooper's Reg. Mag. I never could find a photo of him with the gun, although I gave you some photos of Gary in his gun room with other guns. I never met Gary Cooper, however I think we would have hit it off, so to speak, both being western raised on ranches, he in Montana and myself in AZ. and got our start as Western movie extras. He went a little farther in that business than I did! Good Luck, Ed.

Hope this adds a little more color to the thread on Gary Cooper's Registered Magnum!
Ed.