Help me settle an Argument about Factory Letters from S&W

I was talking with someone the other day ( one of them "I know for a fact" guys). Anyway I was telling him about my K-22 Outsdoorsman factory letter I got from Mr. Jinks at S&W. It shows the ship date of June 7th, 1939 and where it went, with a bit of history of the K-22. His reply was that those dates are an estimate as they couldn't have an exact ship date on each and every gun they made and send out. Well needless to say I was ready to whap him one as I said they wouldn't just create a date to make customers happy, and Mr. Jinks takes pride in his Historian status at Smith & Wesson and would not be putting out bogus shipping dates. I said if there wasn't history on a certain serial number Mr. Jinks would tell the owner there is no record. The conversation ended with him mumbling something about believe what you want, but I "know for a fact" that no company keeps that kind of records. So rather than argue with someone who won't listen to me, I thought I would go on the forum here and have some of you pro's help me set him straight, as he doesn't know I have a lot of backup here that will shut him right up, kinda like my secret weapon of knowledge. Plus most all of you are well armed!

Thanks guys,

If a letter states such and such- that's the way it's listed in the records. (Unless it's a typo or something, which has been [rarely] known to happen) The nice thing about S&W records- they are one of the only few companies that hasn't suffered from a fire or other catastrophe over the years which decimated the records of companies such as Winchester, Colt, Marlin and others. That's why S&W's, IMHO are becoming more collectible- because of ease of verifying the piece with complete company records. I am not a true hard-core collector in the sense most are on here though- I just like what I like.

The term hot air comes to mind...

Take what Mr Jinks says to the bank, sleep well.

You might find some more "ammunition" for your side of the argument in this thread:

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-hi...82436-smith-wesson-historical-foundation.html

.460V & XVR Magnum Man said:

. . .I thought I would go on the forum here and have some of you pro's help me set him straight, as he doesn't know I have a lot of backup here that will shut him right up, kinda like my secret weapon of knowledge. Plus most all of you are well armed! Thanks guys,

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This ought to be fun. What do you think is going to happen when you confront this guy who "absolutely knows" that he is absolutely wrong? I'm betting that not even a personal letter from Mr. Jinks himself and a copy of the shipping documents for J. Edgar's RM will do the trick.

Denial is not de river in Eqypt.


Bullseye

Thanks Ladder13, Andy and cowart............. the golden bullet. This will end his doubts and shut him up for sure. I tried but he is one of those I need to see it in writing, cowarts link will do it.
And probably not Bullseye but you are right I don't know him too well and really don't want to know him, but he won't like being proved wrong that is for sure. And I gotta defend Mr Jinks and S&W!


Thanks again guys,

There are none so blind as those who will not see. I know that for a fact!

Ask him to bring in his birth certificate and show you. If he does, look at it, wad it up and pitch it. Tell em, ya cant belive this stuff!
Years ago we had a joker at work that stood about 6 ft 7"s and always came across as a loud mouth bully type. (I was one of the very few guys that he seemed to like). Anyway he set up a prank. Some guys had a pool going for every lottery draw. His cohert had carefully crafted a "winning" lotto ticket with old tickets and a exacto knife. All the numbers were there! So the cohert is jumping up and down with the group of guys in the pool yelling they won the big one! Ray comes along, snatchs the winning bogus ticket out of his stooleys hand, and says "aw BS! That aint no winner! And shreads it as he keeps walking! Once again he made me earn my keep as a guard there! This little hot head guy a third his size was going to attempt beating on him!

I do contract work at S&W and Ive worked in the records room... They have EVERY record. I was amazed at how old most of that stuff was... Theres so much history in there its amazing!

.460V & XVR Magnum Man said:

Thanks Ladder13, Andy and cowart............. the golden bullet. This will end his doubts and shut him up for sure. I tried but he is one of those I need to see it in writing, cowarts link will do it.

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Sooo... if he sees it on the internet...?

BrianE said:

I do contract work at S&W and Ive worked in the records room... They have EVERY record. I was amazed at how old most of that stuff was... Theres so much history in there its amazing!

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Tell us MORE MORE MORE!

Fine craftsmanship and good business records sometimes go together: S&W, Colt, Winchester, and Marlin come to mind.

The Gun Control Act of 1968 established that guns made prior to January 1, 1899, were antiques. If the shipping date was on or before December 31, 1898, it was antique. If on or after January 1, 1899, it was modern and falls under the GCA of 1968, FFL transfers, instant background check, etc.

The ATF uses shipping records to determine if the gun is antique or modern.

A Colt historical letter documented that Bat Masterson was shipped a custom 45 Colt, SAA in 1895 (from my 1997 Colt product catalogue) . In the records, the historian found it was ordered on stationary from the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City (Uberti website, Single Action Cattleman), ....but he won't believe that either.

Picture old fashioned large ledger books.
Line after line after line......

S&W purchased them from a printer with sequential serial numbers pre-printed on each single line:
578001
578002
578003
578004
The shipping clerk handwrote the ship date as each number was shipped.
An invoice for that date would show WHO it shipped to, and the CONFIGURATION for THAT gun.

Roy has microfilm of the ledgers.
He gets the date for your serial number.
He has the Conn Valley museum pull the invoice for that date for THAT gun number so he knows WHO it went to and WHAT it looked like.

If the shipping clerk failed to make the entry, your gun is "open on the books".
If they loaned the gun to a PD or famous person(writers for instance), or sent it to the National Matches where it was ultimately given away, your gun might be "open on the books".

If Roy sends you a letter stating your gun shipped Nov 16, 1929, then the records positively SAY your gun shipped on that date.
PERIOD.

.460V & XVR Magnum Man said:

The conversation ended with him mumbling something about believe what you want, but I "know for a fact" that no company keeps that kind of records.

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How would he know for a fact anything about what kind of records any company keeps? How many companies has he run? One? Three? Half of the companies in the world? You are dealing with an idiot. You have already spent far more time on this than he is worth.

Your friend may be right...I lettered my Model 17 this year and it reads, "shipped sometime between 1860 and 2011." As for who it was shipped to, it just says, "to someone needing a gun." When I called to complain, I was told Roy was off that week and his brother-in-law was filling in for him.

If a company is producing a serialized product (anything with a serial number), then they are making records about it. Even for non-serialized products, there is usually a batch number of some sort to which a product can be tied.

Your "know for a fact" knucklehead lacks even simple corporate sense. Any accountant, of which I am not one, would laugh out loud at him. Records are kept not as a courtesy to the public, or to satisfy some grand historical plan, but simply because activities need to be tracked so as to assign costs and revenues. So you tell him that it is widely known "for a fact" that companies keep records at this level of detail because that is how they know what they've done, when, and how much money is involved.

Records like this were kept long before computers, but computers have increased the level of detail. Ask your friend if he's ever heard of an ERP. If not, it stands for "enterprise resource planning" and is a giant piece of expensive software designed to track most activities in the business. Ask your friend if he has ever seen an ERP. Ask him if he has ever used an ERP. Ask him if he's ever seen line workers at an assembly facility scan parts with a barcode reader, or walk to a terminal and actually enter data. What does he think they're doing? Checking their stocks?

My current client is a polymer drainage pipe manufacturer, and right now I am helping them build a data mart to report on production entry. The PE data mart will allow them to track how much time and material went into the finished goods produced. This information will be sliceable by the person entering the data, the production entry date, the product (down to the SKU, since this is not serialized product), the facility, the shift, the production line, and about 20 other basic attributes common to this information.

And all that is just for polymer pipe. NOW... imagine you make a product where every finished good has a serial number, AND your product is lethal, AND the past several decades have been in an overly-litigious climate where active political interests have a stated goal of eradication of your product, and perhaps criminalization of your current and past activities. Maybe Mr. Know-for-a-fact is a blowhard, but he doesn't know jack squat about how companies keep records.

Thanks for everyones reply..... He admits he was wrong, impressed with your replys!!

I contacted him and said I didn't want to argue but let me read you a few comments from some guys who are my friends and know Smith & Wesson inside and out in all levels. By the time I read most of your comments to him, and Handejector's comment ending with "PERIOD"!! We had a bit of eating crow, and an admission of I guess I had it wrong. I said next time consider this a learning experience, to keep your mouth shut until you do a bit of research on the topic you knew really nothing about. I sure want to thank you guys for your help, Smith & Wesson is a really great company and I hate to see someone bashing it. Sure they have had their share of speedbumps along the way, but have been around a long, long time for a reason. Product and customer service is #1, new or old, lock or not. There are a few QC issues but they sure bend over backwards to fix them. The 2 guns I personally have sent back were returned in perfect condition and in a very timely manner. My older gun's, my Pre 27, Pre 29 and 586 no dash my K-22 outdoorsman, model 36, model 1905 third change they are works of art. My newer S&W's 3- 617's 2- 686P's, 2- .500's, 2- 460's, the set of new 29-10's & M627PC and M629PC UDR's the are also in my opinion the best new guns on the market today that a person can purchase new. Sure the classics blow them away, but the new ones are what the new customers of Smith & Wesson will call their own classics 75-100 years from now. Thanks again you guys make a great team, and a fine extended family, and as MG357 says "Proud to be a member of the Smith-Wesson Forum". And thanks to Mr. Jinks for his great help in figuring out just what we have and when it was made. And to "Handejector" Lee Jarrett for his great management of our Forum!!
Best regards to all,

sipowicz said:

I was told Roy was off that week and his brother-in-law was filling in for him.

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That Hy is such a kidder.

pharmer said:

That Hy is such a kidder.

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Thats funny.I didn't know his BIL and him had the same last name.