Dropped my wife off at Wal Mart in a nearby town and made the rounds to the local pawn shops. Found a Smith & Wesson Third Model .32 Hand Ejector in eye-catching condition with a tag sporting a decent price stuck to its side plate. The kindly pawn shop owner knocked off $75 and said he wouldn't tack on tax, all without my prodding . Behaved rationally, put it back and left to head back over to Wal Mart. Got there and wheeled up to the door just as my wife was coming out. Picked her up and then pointed the car back down the street towards the pawn shop as I decided I'd better fetch it home.
I love all antique and "classic" Smith & Wesson revolvers but have never been drawn to the little I-Frame guns quite to the extent that I admire the K-Frames and the N-Frames. This .32 looks to have been fired very, very little if at all and only has light handling marks. Serial number is 277768 which puts it somewhere between 1915 and 1919 as best as I can determine. Anyone who can tighten this date range up will be appreciated. The pawn shop owner said it came from the estate of a little ol' lady whom I assume "only carried it to church on Sunday." He said he'd only put it out for sale this morning.
I have a ratty example of an I-Frame .32 that I'll sell to make room for this one. It is also a Third Model with the 4 1/4-inch barrel with serial number of 302275. The curious thing about the two revolvers is that the later one with the longer barrel has the final patent date as Sept. 14, '09 on its barrel, The earlier revolver with the shorter barrel has the Dec. 28, '14 date as the final patent on its barrel.
The later of the two .32 revolvers has the less common large S&W logo on its side plate and the earlier revolver has no logo at all.
Posts: 3621 | Location: North Texas | Registered: 14 January 2006
Really nice condition! Love the "story" too, I have an 1896 in similar condition that came with a similar story, "Little Old Lady, etc." We all know better to buy the story, but it's interesting how many "Little Old Ladies" were packing serious heat back in the day, if their all true.
