I've obtained a S&W No. 1, Third issue and wonder if anyone one can give me any more information than my copy of "History of Smith & Wesson" by Roy G. Jinks such as possibly an actual year of manufacture. I'm thinking early 1870s, but not sure.
It is, of course a tip up. The serial number is 37048. The serial number is very difficult to read on the metal, but the inside of the grip and metal serial numbers match. It is nickel plated and has about 80-90% left (sorry about the quality of the picture..lighting issues today).
I'm quite happy with it. The action functions flawlessly.
Welcome to the Forum. The SCSW4 shows #1's ,3rd Mod, s/n 1-131163 as between 1868 & 1881. I'd guess yours in 1870. My 3rd Mod #48122 was shipped Mar. 1971.
Welcome to the forums from the Wiregrass! The best information I have, Jeff, is in the SCSW, 4th Edition. It states that 131,163 of that model were made from 1868-1881. If one presumes a linear production of around 10,000 units per year, your gun would have been made in 1871. But that is just a SWAG, not a scientific certainty. I believe one of the members has the shop foreman's production log. He can probably nail it down to the MM-DD-YY.
<Ah, Mr. Richard posted while I was typing>
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Last edited by Wiregrassguy; 01-07-2017 at 01:06 PM.
Thank you. Clearly I need to get a copy of SCSW, 4th Edition. I have "History of Smith & Wesson" by Roy G. Jinks and used that to try and calculate 131K/about 13 years and so my guess was right around 1871, too, but if SN 48K was Mar 71, then I would imagine mine, at SN 37K was toward the end of '70. Good information.
I'm working on a collection of these S&W Tip Up revolvers. They and their history is fascinating.
What the SCSW will tell you is that S&W did not ship in SN order. So, it is entirely possible your gun didn't ship until 1872 or even later. So, you'll either need an historians letter or the shop foreman's recorded date to nail it down.
Really, now that is interesting information. It makes some sense, though. When "it" goes out the door is likely a function of when it was finished (final finish and inspection) and order specifications (finish, barrel size, etc.) by a dealer.
As others have mentioned, this is a Model 1, 3rd Issue.
The 3rd issue was essentially a "restyle" of the 2nd issue. When the patent for the bored through cylinder expired, Smith & Wesson restyled these guns to try to maintain market appeal. It's an interesting early example of gun manufacturers working to maintain their customer base when their patent monopolies expired.
Virtually all of these guns were wholesaled through a few large dealers (J. W. Storrs in New York City was the most common), so a factory letter is probably only going to tell you the date that the gun shipped from the factory. I'm estimating a ship date somewhere around 1870 or 1871, but that's just a finger-in-the-wind guess based on the specimens in my collection with known ship dates.
Mine is SN 1064XX and lettered to January 1875. Looks like the last 25000 took 6-7 years to sell out and ship. I'm guessing that the Number One really lost popularity after 1874. You couldn't kill or even hurt anything much with it. . .maybe a small mouse. Super fun to shoot with little short CB caps. Mine is my avatar since it's the only 142 year old Smith I own.
This model is pretty neat. Here's the only one I own #72596. I have a factory letter for it stating it shipped in April of 1872. What makes this one nice is according to the letter it left the factory as an engrave pistol. Meaning it could have been engraved at the factory or off site, then returned to the factory for shipping.
These certainly are an interesting study all their own. I appreciate all the information you guys have provided. The manufacture vs. shipping date is interesting when you think about the popularity trend for these tiny defenders.
I like the engraving. S&W did offer a nice variety of choices for finish variations.
S&W No. 1, 3rd Issue question
Linear Mode
