That SN tags its original shipping date to around late 1942-early 1943. Most of these revolvers were made for use by the British Commonwealth military during WWII, in caliber .38 S&W. In the late 1950s through most of the 1960s, the British surplussed out hundreds of thousands of them, which were bought up at scrap metal prices by various American surplus weapons dealers who imported them. To make them sell better in the USA, those dealers often chopped the barrels to 2", rechambered them to .38 special and frequently reblued or nickel plated them and added some cheap plastic grips. Most were sold by mail order (which was legal in the USA back then) for prices in the $25-$35 range. They have no collectible value. Probably the most notorious example was the chopped Victory allegedly used by Lee Harvey Oswald to kill Dallas police officer J. D. Tippett right after the JFK assassination in 1963.