Its clear, to me, that some of you are fascinated with the relationship between serial
numbers and shipping dates. Otherwise, this whole discussion would not have started.

In a proper research environment, one would have proposed an idea, developed it into a
hypothesis, and then tested it by gathering unbiased data, and in some manner or other,
evaluate that data vis-a-vis the hypothesis. In this case, it has been done backwards.

I explained the manufacturing process, and all its implications. From that explanation, it
should be expected that the guns would not be in serial number order. The next step would
be to examine the data, to see if, in fact, that is so. And, of course, the data bears
that out. The data is not in serial number/date order because the guns were not made that
way. But - this was foregone conclusion.

There is nothing wrong with gathering data, but you are not doing it in a constructive way.
You have focused on the serial-number shipping-date relationship, when in fact there is none.
This is not the right thing to do.

The data would be far more interesting, and informative, if you gathered information about
the guns themselves. You should first identify what serial number series you are interested
in. Then, in that series, you should gather things like:

Barrel length, Finish, Caliber, Sight configuration, where shipped, anything special,
and then lastly, way out on the end of the record, the shipping date.

In this manner, the data can be used to learn things about the guns that are not in the
factory records. For example, with enough data, you could answer the question about
how many 4" barrels were made. Records like this were not kept, but are of keen interest
to collectors when it comes to thinking about the value of the gun. Or, you might be able
to make inferences about how many guns (in that series) were finished in nickel.

Joe Miller, on his S&WCA site, has gathered data like this for a number of S&W's. Its a
very useful datasbase for learning those things that are not in the factory records.

The thing about data is that, by virtue of how it is gathered, and how it is presented,
an implication of importance is thereby attached. In the case of this data, it has been
gathered and presented in a serial-number shipping date context. There is no importance
or significance to that relationship. The data is good and interesting as it relates to
survivors, but it is not good or interesting vis-a-vis shipping dates and serial numbers.

Later, Mike Priwer