I picked up this K22 recently and I'm rather curious about what the collective wisdom of the forum has to say about the gun and box together.

The gun is SN K310XXX

The box end label reads: K-38 (Crossed out and overwritten K-22), Heavy Masterpiece, 6 inch barrel, blue finish, target hammer.

The gun has the wide rib and target hammer, so I believe the box is correct however incorrectly numbered.

The grips and box are K313350. The grips are a flawless fit, which leads me to think they are original however incorrectly numbered.


Any input?

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The American dream is alive

I think we can only guess on what has happened, but my take is that the box and stocks belonged to another gun at one time. Maybe the owner owned both serial numbers and switched the stocks on purpose. I see that there is a "301" scratched out over the new serial number and the old one is also scratched out. All this work was done with pencil and not white marker, so that adds to the suspicion.

If the owner had both a 38 & 22 Masterpiece, it makes sense that he or she could have done this. The factory would have had rooms full of boxes and labels for every model and configuration made, so unlikely they would have needed to use a K38 box/label for a K22.

Lastly, by the 1950s, stocks were made almost identical, made by machine and needed little or no fitting, so the fact that they fit well does not mean much by this time with improved manufacturing processes available.

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Gary
SWCA 2515

I think someone bought a gun, Replaced the grips with aftermarket grips. Then put the original grips in the box. Fast forward 50 or so years. Someone buys a box with a set of grips in it. Puts the grips on his gun and puts his gun in the box he bought. Then sold the whole package to you.
Just my thinking

Wingmaster

First off, that is a beautiful gun and the SAT (sight adjustment tool) is very nice too. I think it's highly unlikely the box is original to the gun.

It seems somewhat uncommon for that vintage of gun to not have grips numbered to the gun so I think the grips are more likely than not to be from another gun but in the end there's no way to really know.

All we know for sure is:
1. The gun is beautiful.
2. The grips are beautiful.
3. The box is labeled for a k-38 Masterpiece.
4. Various numbers are written on the box, one which matches the serial number for the gun and one which matches the numbers for the grips.

Any other conclusions are speculation.

glowe gives a reasonable explanation.

The K301 scratched out looks like the same style as the K310405 below it. I would suspect the person was starting to write down the serial number and realized they accidently wrote K-three-zero-one, switching the zero and the one, and then scratched out the incorrect start to the serial number.

John
Scoundrel and Ne'er-Do-Well in Training

Input: That is a beautiful gun. The "extras" are, well, extra, and while I have an opinion on extras, it shouldn't matter to anyone. But to repeat; you have a beautiful gun. Enjoy it!

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Why, I aughta.....

Nice gun! Enjoy shooting it.

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Hue 68 noli me tangere

Guns get separated from boxes, stocks get swapped between guns, things get mixed up all the time.

Scenario 1: A big gun dealer has several S&Ws on display. Salesmen show them to customers who try on various aftermarket stocks offered for sale and the stocks wind up swapped between two or more guns.

Scenario 2: A police department has several target revolvers for the shooting team. The armorer cleans them and tunes them up all at once. All the guns are spread out on the bench in various stages of disassembly (why isn't that a word?). Anyway, parts and boxes get swapped.

Scenario 3: A target shooter or collector owns several revolvers and he accidentally swaps the parts at some point.

BTW- 99.9% of the time factory stocks fit every gun perfectly. Not a sign they are original to that gun. Indeed, if they have a different serial on them that's proof they are not.

Somehow the box and stocks got swapped. You'll never know for sure how or when.

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No life story has happy end.

I think it's safe to assume there was some switching of boxes and grips, you've got a beautiful gun regardless and the accessories are fairly valuable even if they don't match.

Russell,

As has been written, it's an awesome package. If I had to vote on the most likely scenario, I would vote for Wingmaster's. Certainly all are plausible speculations but his IMO is the most prevalent occurrence and to me at least, the most likely by far.

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Jim
S&WCA #819

Quite a nice package, the case coloring is particularly noteworthy.

Too nice to shoot?