I have a question on dad's Model 40. Dad took all his kids to the range serveral times a year, in his later years it was only I and my son who would go to the range with him. He left me his Model 40 but didn't tell me much about it. The weapon is priceless to me but I get two different stories from my older brothers. The pistol has a factory installed 3" barrel I know this because the box say's so. One bro says it's not worth much because he had it altered. The other says it's rare because it's factory. I'm confussed. The serial number is 23xxx, I'd like to know as much as I can so I won't make the same mistake when I hand it down to my son. Any info or sites to do more research would be helpful.
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What about it does your brother think was altered?

SCS&W III shows a nickel Model 40 with a 3 inch barrel. It says it is rare.

That is a fine way to keep your dad's memory alive, taking your son shooting.

He's jealous that Dad left his weapons to me. Altered means it no longer has the standard 1 7/8' (I think) barrel. Back when my son (his first grandson) was 4 years old he called wanting to go to the range and asked to bring jr with us. I said he's to young, he said how old do you think you were? I can't remember him teaching me how to shoot, needless to say Jr. went with us that day. Today Jr. loves shooting his 1917 Enfield with the ladder sites up.

If the box says it was a 3" then it's factory. Factory 3" 40's are fairly scarce, but I believe rare is probably a little ambitious

If you wish you can contact S&W and get a letter concerning its history. Not sure about the procedure or cost but it isn't prohibitively expensive and might make a nice supplement for your family heirloom.

Thanks to all, please keep helping, I will check out getting a letter from s&w.

I agree with the comment about the gun being original if the box label shows it was issued that way, but I find the above comment odd.

In SCSW terminology a variation described as "Scarce" is less commonly found than one which is characterized as "Rare". To clarify this I had to call Jim Supica after I obtained the first edition SCSW. So, in "Collectorese" you can't have scarce without having rare at the same time, but not conversely.

This is one of my "Grail" guns, but not likely to ever find one.

It's original.

It's rare (whatever the serious collectors decide that means).

I have one close to yours at 23674 (regular 2") and it shipped 10/19/64.

Be careful if you remove the stocks. S&W stored a little pin to hold down the grip safety under them and the pin was usually lost forever the first time the unaware owner took off the stock panels. If the pin is still there you want to keep it there.

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Did not know about the pin, and I doubt Dad ever took the stocks off. I was thinking about getting bigger grips because I've seen some on this site. the grips are small and hard to hold on target and still pull the double action trigger. thanks to all who chimed in it's very helpful. Rear or scarce I still don't know the difference, either way it will always stay in this family as long as my boy apprieciates it like I do, and I think he will, grandpa was spiecial to him too.

I wonder if there's a Tyler T-grip that fits this model? That would give more girth to hold onto and preserve the unique factory grips.

Ya'll are going to make me cry now, that is one of the best father-son stories I've heard in a long time.