Please forgive the curt tone of my response, Brother Sevens.

I meant no disrespect.

Often, I am simply pressed for time.

But as I recall, we enthusiasts had been awaiting rust resistant guns for so long that when the major manufacturers finally offered them to shooters, the response was obvious and overwhelming.

I may have mentioned this before, but I personally own a model 439 that was manufactured in 1980 but didn't leave the factory until 1990, a full ten years later.

It just didn't make sense to buy pistols whose slides (and sometimes frames) could rust and their alloy frames show every point of contact when for a few dollars more, one could buy a pistol that held its finish for a much longer time with less care.

Most folks thought the stainless guns looked better, too.

I think S&W sold a lot of blackened guns at a loss just to get them off the books.

It is now in the age of the so called "hillary hole" and all things MIM are the work of the devil (as espoused by folks to whom nostalgia is more authentic then reality) that the formerly unwanted models are held in such high esteem.

John