J frame Red Box $480 on Flea Bay

$480 for a J frame Red Box!!!

Vintage Smith Wesson Pistol Box Red | eBay

I was bidding on this. Auction is over so I can post link... to my chagrin I did not win it...I hope a S&W Collector from here got it.
I bought one last year on E Bay and paid $140. This one says Aluminum on label. So it is not the same as mine. That's the only difference between mine and this one.
That is (I assume) an earlier Chief Special Air weight. Pre Model 37.
My only issue with a box like this is its ability to be forged. The paper work was not period correct as that was for a model 36.

If the serial number on the bottom of the box was for an alloy J frame USAF Aircrewman, $480 was the steal of the century! Ed.

"If the serial number on the bottom of the box was for an alloy J frame USAF Aircrewman, $480 was the steal of the century! Ed."

That's just it...there was no grease pencil s/n on the bottom or anywhere that I could see. It was not sold by a collector. It was sold by a pawn shop type place that deals in all sorts of stuff. (So they knew very little about it.. like I said they were selling it with Model 36 manual as the correct one.)
It looked legit but without the ability to look at it personally I backed off ..although I hung with it for a long time...But I could not help stopping short of $500 without verification. Maybe the buyer found/saw something I missed.

I was watching the box via ebay. Astonished to see what it finally sold for.

I have a box very much like that one; mine says "Airweight Blued" instead of "Aluminum Blued."
But mine came with a pre-Model 37 Chief's Special Airweight inside...

JayCeeNC said:

I have a box very much like that one; mine says "Airweight Blued" instead of "Aluminum Blued."
But mine came with a pre-Model 37 Chief's Special Airweight inside...

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You probably paid about $500 with the gun in the box... Or less.

The "Aluminum" reference on the end label instead of "Airweight" is the key to the high price. This style of box was used only for the early alloy Chiefs Special models with the alloy cylinders, and is many times more rare than the later boxes that have "Airweight" on the end label.

Consider that there were only 3,777 Chiefs Special revolvers with an alloy cylinder in the first place, and then consider how few of the boxes for those revolvers survived for sixty years. This only the second one of these boxes I have ever seen for sale on eBay and I have been watching for them for years.

WOW!

I paid $145 for one of those red boxes, but it came with an unfired Baby Chief's inside - about 15 years ago.

What do you think it was worth?

JudgeColt said:

The "Aluminum" reference on the end label instead of "Airweight" is the key to the high price. This style of box was used only for the early alloy Chiefs Special models with the alloy cylinders, and is many times more rare than the later boxes that have "Airweight" on the end label.

Consider that there were only 3,777 Chiefs Special revolvers with an alloy cylinder in the first place, and then consider how few of the boxes for those revolvers survived for sixty years. This only the second one of these boxes I have ever seen for sale on eBay and I have been watching for them for years.

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Yes I actually understood what the Aluminum meant and that this one was a very rare box. The problem as with all rare items is determining their value. You just can't look it up somewhere. To be really honest I wanted that box pretty badly... but just didn't know what over paying looked like. Rare doesn't always mean expensive/ valuable.

I don't know if it was you who won the auction or not... but what do you think it was worth?

I have seen a lot of boxes for Reg mags go for a lot more.. but $500 for a rare red box. I am just not sure. Unless I never wanted to liquidate it...then the price becomes irrelevant over time.. If I knew in advance that the rarity would value that box at say $600-$700 I would be willing to pay it. But I was unprepared/ uninformed to do that. When it quickly went over $400 I had to admit to myself that I lacked knowledge as to intrinsic value. I was still willing to ride for awhile but based on bidding pattern it was obvious the last bidder was willing to go over $500 and probably quite bit more. So I quit based on my lack of knowledge. My loss his gain....or he/she paid too much. I can say that I have no more or less than I had yesterday. That is not a bad thing. But it sure would look nice next to my red box for a steel "Chiefs Special"

My pre-Model 37 in the "Airweight Blued" box has the alloy cylinder and the "bug" screw at the top of the sideplate. Serial# 43926 and shipped January, 1954. Box and grips numbered to the gun.
Too bad the box sold at auction didn't have a visible serial number on the bottom.

I get the idea someone who owns an appropriate gun wants the box so bad that they will pay any price. I would assume that person has a collection and a large budget.

For my budget I would rather use that $480 to add another SW revolver to my collection.

mbliss57 said:

$480 for a J frame Red Box!!!

Vintage Smith Wesson Pistol Box Red | eBay

I was bidding on this. Auction is over so I can post link... to my chagrin I did not win it...I hope a S&W Collector from here got it.
I bought one last year on E Bay and paid $140. This one says Aluminum on label. So it is not the same as mine. That's the only difference between mine and this one.
That is (I assume) an earlier Chief Special Air weight. Pre Model 37.
My only issue with a box like this is its ability to be forged. The paper work was not period correct as that was for a model 36.

Click to expand...

mbliss57 said:

But it sure would look nice next to my red box for a steel "Chiefs Special"

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If you only wanted the box and do not have the appropriate gun to go with it, I can understand the reluctance to pay more. However, IF you have an alloy-cylinder Chiefs Special, you will bid more for the next one, right?

I bought a lid only with the "Aluminum" end label about a year ago and paid about half of what the full box just brought. Since I had a complete red box for a steel Chiefs Special, I now have a "complete" box with the rare "Aluminum" end label for alloy-cylinder Chiefs Special 27XXX (shipped April 7, 1953) - and a lid-only for a steel Chiefs Special!

What I really need to know is what the end label on a SQUARE BUTT Chiefs Special (29XXX shipped June 24, 1953) with the alloy cylinder looks like. The "Aluminum" end labels make no reference to the butt configuration, so I am wondering if Smith & Wesson might just have written on the end label to indicate the square butt, a practice I have seen on many Smith boxes, where the barrel length, butt configuration and finish have been overwritten in grease pencil.

CJNC's very late alloy-cylinder Chiefs Special box end label has a reference to the butt configuration and no reference to "Aluminum," but, being so late, I do not think that end label is relevant to the earlier guns.

Anybody have a square-butt, alloy-cylinder Chiefs Special in its original box? If so, what does the end label say?

My hunch is that the buyer of the box has a USAF alloy Chief's Special, and the box will soon have a white, or yellow, grease pencil serial number on the bottom to match the gun! The combination of a minty USAF Chief's Special, in the "original" box, will go into 5 figures quickly. The fact that the box had no serial number was a big plus, I suspect! Ed.

JudgeColt said:

What I really need to know is what the end label on a SQUARE BUTT Chiefs Special (29XXX shipped June 24, 1953) with the alloy cylinder looks like. The "Aluminum" end labels make no reference to the butt configuration, so I am wondering if Smith & Wesson might just have written on the end label to indicate the square butt, a practice I have seen on many Smith boxes, where the barrel length, butt configuration and finish have been overwritten in grease pencil.

Anybody have a square-butt, alloy-cylinder Chiefs Special in its original box? If so, what does the end label say?

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The OP's referenced 'aluminum' box does have the butt confiuration however; "ROUND BUTT" is clear. So it is likely that the correct box for your gun would have 'square butt' printed or at least 'round butt' printed, crossed out and over written with 'sq butt' in black grease pencil.

Just to tie this up I do not have the gun for the box. But I am always buying boxes ahead of the gun when I knew I was "Hunting" them. I figure if I get lucky and find the gun with a box i can always resell the 1st box. I have done this with (2) K22 Targets, a 5" model 27, a model 49, a 38 Combat masterpiece Gold Box, 2 really nice .32 &.38 ND boxes from the 1900's.
and (2) 38 Chief Specials with the Star Burst box. And I have a shelf full of unfilled boxes waiting for the right gun to fill them. I started doing that a year ago and I met a J Frame Collector "Tom H" at our last NE Bunch meeting and he confirmed he had been doing that for decades.
Finally...
I like the post that OPOEFC wrote... and I never thought of it but having the correct gun for the box and a box without a grease pencil # could make that box extremely attractive to a buyer who owned a grease pencil.
Thank you all for your input it is always appreciated & gives me tools for the next time I am in that position.