I have a Victory series 38 S&W SPC CTG parkerized finish with a 2" barrel all the serial numbers match, barrel, frame, grips, cylinder. I was wanting to know more about it. From what I have read it is "rare" for the 2" barrel. SN#V179468 I'm trying to decide if I want to chase the letter of authenticity from S&W Historical foundation.

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need a photo and s/n

welcome to the forum.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

First question is it a british revolver that has been cut down ?
Next question is where are the picture's ?
If it is original it is rare as not a lot were made with 2" bbls.

Welcome to the forum!
There weren't any factory 'Victory' models in .38 S&W with 2" barrels. The rare ones you are thinking of were only produced in .38 Special. Is the locking lug under the barrel missing? Does the ejector rod hand unsupported and come almost to the end of the barrel? If so, you have a cut off British gun that is worth about what a letter will cost.

So the SN you list, does it start with a V?

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Chris
SWCA #2243 SWHF #292

Looks like the photos got posted.

It appears to be a legitimate 2” Victory Model. Many examples of that era were cut down from longer barrels, nickeled, plastic stag stocks installed, etc.

A letter of authenticity from the S & W Historical Foundation would be needed to confirm it is original, but I would guess it will be or is a really well done conversion. Hope this is helpful.

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

Hello Davis and welcome. Just spring for a letter or get a friend to post a SDR.

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Mike 2796
SoFo Bunch member

I edited the post and added the pics with serial number. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info, I'm new to this and had trouble posting the pics. Here is a couple more pics. I'm not sure what the SDR is ?

How it the top strap marked? Is the inside of the right stock numbered? How about the cylinder? It appears to be legit but I think it is one of the 100 Ft. Mason guns that did not get recorded in the shipping records.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

A letter is necessary, For a revolver with that much potential value.

That gun looks good. I'd have the letter application and a check in the mail soon as possible.

Looks good from what I can determine from the photographs. I concur that you should get it lettered to affrim the 2" configuration. Not often seen as a factory manufactured 2". NICE catch !!

I'm going to go out on a limb here. Most likely it was manufactured to stay state-side for one of the defense factories or civil defense units.

PS: if it "letters" correctly, consider me an interested potential buyer, #1 on the list.

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ANTIQUESMITHS
LM1300 SWHF425

It is one of 40 that shipped to the Washington Navy Yard in December 1942.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

Hey! Isn’t that like insider trading or something?

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Alan
SWCA LM 2023, SWHF 220

Thanks for all the info Kevin that is a neat article. I believe I will be contacting the SWHF and getting that letter.

...as well you should.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

Good looking specimen of an uncommon model. As you have discovered, Kevin is the expert. It's hard to put a value on these because there are so few that the ones that surface command whatever price they can reach out of the available supply of wannabe owners. Assuming that this one letters as having shipped in that configuration, don't take less than $4000 for it. If it goes to auction at a time when several people want one, bidding may close out near $7500-8000. Lower prices have been reported for guns by buyers who got theirs from an owner who didn't know what he had. I don't know that one of these has sold in the five-digit range, but I guess the day is coming.

Kevin, would you be willing to report for the world at large your current tally of known specimens and your estimate of production volume for this particular configuration? I have your articles, of course, but don't want to poach on your preserve.

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David Wilson

That is a beauty.

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Mike
S&WCA #3065

David,
Thanks for the compliment but I claim no expertise...just a student. There were 300 2" Victory Models shipped to Ft. Mason in California but Roy can only find serial numbers on 200 of them. The other 100 will letter as "open" on the records. There were 40 shipped to the Washington Navy Yard with 2 more earmarked for a specific individual. There were 4 guns shipped to the American Aviation Company in Jamestown, NY. All 346 of these guns were shipped in late 1942 and they all fall in the SN range of V175XXX to V180XXX. In 1944/5 there were 500 guns authorized by the Defense Supplies Corporation (DSC) to go to domestic law enforcement organizations. These guns will be number in the V629XXX and higher range. There are, of course, lots of Victory Models with cut down barrels, mostly British Service revolvers.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

How does it shoot?

Your gun is a legitimate 2 inch, shipped Dec. 16, 1942, to the Washington Navy Yard. I just sold a mint example, within 30 serial numbers, to another S&W collector for a price in the mid 4 figures. Ed.

Most likely shipped in Dec of 42. Definitely send for the letter. I'd love to know where it went!

Mailed out the application today. Thank you guys for all the info.

The letter will tell you what Ed told you. But given the amount of money in play, you absolutely need that letter to authenticate the gun and complete the package.

And since we have our relevant experts gathered here:

Does anyone have any information or educated guess what the Navy did with these 2” guns? We have plenty of anecdotal narratives and photos of the 4” Navy Victory in service. But the 2” was likely not used for pilots or shipside guard duty. Naval intelligence? Higher officers? Based on Kevin’s article we don’t really know in whose hands the Ft. Mason guns ended up either.

Educated guess: Some branch of the NCIS for those sent to the Washington Navy Yard and for Ft. Mason, a 6th Army post, the 2 in. guns probably went to the Army Criminal Investigation units. Either case probably got very little use as most examples found today are in near mint condition. I would bet that if someone researched the military archives of those units they will find a list of small arms, by serial number, whenever there was a change of command, as the outgoing CO and new CO each had to sign off that all arms issued to their units were present and accounted for. I once "lost" a $25,000 Bofors 40mm anti aircraft cannon I had signed for, and the Army was going to take it out of my pay. I had it loaded on a freight car for shipment to a firing range and the railroad misdirected it to Louisiana instead of Ft. Irwin, CA., There was some serious puckering going on until it was found! Ed.

WOW! WOW! WOW!

Ed’s suppositions make a lot of sense. A side note: It would have been the ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence; the Navy didn’t get a distinct separate investigative service until the 1960s, and the NCIS wasn’t called such until some time later.

I've seen a photo or two of Army CIC or CID agents in Europe, armed with sq. butt Colt Detective Specials, but never a snub M&P Victory model.

If anyone finds such a picture, please post it or a link.

Thanks, Kevin. So barring new evidence of previously unknown production runs, and assuming that all 500 revolvers authorized for DSC distribution were actually assembled and shipped, we can conclude that 846 two-inch Victory revolvers would have been produced.

I last looked seriously at the survivor count on this model nearly five years ago, but I think I have seen three or four previously unknown specimens that came to light in the interim, including the subject of this thread. There may be others that I missed. On my last tabulation (on which I acknowledge your generous help), I think there was a roster of around 50. Do you know if we have yet reached -- or perhaps even passed -- the five dozen level?

If the surviving specimens can be legitimately considered a random sample, we ought to know roughly half again as many specimens with serial numbers above V600000 as we do those with serial numbers below V200000. Is that proportion reflected in your own data? (I would take a run at this myself, but occasional system crashes and cloud storage failures have taken their toll in the last few years. I no longer have some of the data sets I once tried to keep current.)

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David Wilson

David,
I've recorded over 50 of the low SN range guns but at least 10 of them are re-barreled or outright fakes. I've recorded about 40 of the DSC guns of which 6 or so are confirmed fakes.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

Many thanks. It sounds then as though about 75 legitimate two-inch Victory revolvers may now be in the hands of collectors, which is about 20 more than I had in mind. Good to know.

Interesting that a few more have been seen among the lower serial-number group than among the DSC guns with higher serial numbers. That kind of plays to my working suspicion that not all the 500 units authorized by the DSC were actually produced., but it will probably be another 10 or 20 years before sufficient additional specimens have surfaced to make the stats even slightly persuasive.

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David Wilson

Have you considered trying to get to answers from the other end, the DSC orders? Some of that stuff is now available through the SWHF. Bill Cross just recently was able to find for me the DSC contract shipping order for 400 4-inchers to a police department in 1945, based on one gun's serial from that order which I have. No idea whether there is a practical way to look for 2-inch orders shipped, but might be worth exploring.

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Hi, Dave. Thanks for pursuing and posting the relevant data. As usual, you're right on the mark. I knew these were scarce but had no idea how many have surfaced. I've seen one sell for $3500 at a LGS (within the past year) with no banter, about 90% condition with that feeling that it has just been de-RIG-ed, as if it had just come out from long term storage.

What I did NOT know, and never would have suspected, that a 2" shipped from DSC would fail to letter correctly, presuming all the numbers matched, etc. If a seller had presented the receipt and shipping dox form DSC, I would not have (not even in my wildest investigative mindset) suspected it might be "wrong" (given the numbers matched). Thanks again, Dave.

And, Kevin, as always ... you're "the" go-to man on these and so many other S&Ws ... .always right on the mark with accuracy of data and research. Thank you. Sal

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ANTIQUESMITHS
LM1300 SWHF425

Gentlemen,
It is always risky to speculate about what happened 70+ years ago but additional information, documents and guns continue to slowly fill in the gaps in our knowledge. David, I'm not sure why you would think that there were fewer than 500 guns sold through the DSC. Maybe but I have a few letters that show LE organizations getting 10 or 20 or more at a time. Consider Roy's statement in this letter (sanitized since it isn't my gun):


As to the military users of 2" Victory Models--I don't think the Army used them. Why? Because the Army received over 5,000 Colt Detective Specials and over 3,000 Colt Commandos with 2" barrels. In general, the Army favored Colt and the Navy and USMC got S&W revolvers. Again, we don't know but that's my $0.02 on it.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

Kevin:
That is a very interesting letter due to the 1944 date. It is the first indication I have seen that the DSC would have actually ordered a significant quantity of guns (regardless of barrel length) shipped to itself for distribution that late. All evidence so far has pointed to approx. March 1942 as the beginning of a shift to the policy of the DSC simply authorizing the factories to ship directly to approved recipients.

Have you ever come across other letters, Colt or S&W, indicating shipment to the DSC warehouse, after mid-1942?

Absalom,
In spite of that sentence being clear English, it doesn't mean that those guns were shipped to a DSC warehouse. Even the gun in that letter was drop-shipped to a LE Organization. I think Roy just meant that they received an order from the DSC for 500 of each barrel length on that day, with specific instructions about where to ship them in small lots.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

Thanks to each of you who've shared your bits of knowledge. Invaluable.

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Wrangler of stray Chiefs
Bob

Kevin, until you posted that letter excerpt I had never seen a single piece of evidence that two-inch DSC guns were shipped in quantities greater than a few at a time. Most of the shipped guns I knew about were singletons. The one in my collection (V629214, which shipped in April 1945), was one of an order for 100 mixed two-inch and four-inch revolvers sent to a city official in Paris, TX. The shipment details do not disclose how many of each configuration were in the order, but based on what I knew then -- or thought I knew -- I doubted more than a few would have been of the shorter variety. Now I have to acknowledge that many of them may have been.

That letter raises additional questions for me. If 500 were authorized and shipped by August 1944, where are the authorizations for the few we know that were shipped in late 1944 and 1945? And secondarily, since mine bears a serial number that would date the frame to the preceding year, how could all 500 have been shipped then if my specimen was not among them?

Like Absalom, I was of the mind that the DSC got out of the receiving and transshipment business fairly early in the war, subsequently allowing manufacturers to ship directly to authorized agencies or firms as long as the needed permissions were in place.

Since Absalom had success with the Historical Foundation for a Victory from a 1945 shipment, I also will try that route for V629214. If new information is found, I will report it.

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David Wilson

Guys,

This is a GUESS. Please don't take this as anything but my opinion based on my study of the 2" Victory Model, including a few factory invoices and other documents, along with some personal experience with government contracting.

I think that S&W was authorized to bill the DSC for 1,000 guns on August 22, 1944 and they set aside 500 of each barrel length. Then, as the DSC got orders from authorized LEOs, they issued instructions to S&W for where to ship them. The LEO was buying them from the DSC who had already paid S&W for the guns.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

You know, that would fit with something I’ve wondered about, namely the absence of price information on the Louisville document I posted above. S&W just shipped as instructed, they didn’t have to collect payment from Louisville since that had already been handled through the DSC.

Kevin, I'll trust your guesses more than my research any day of the week.

I kind of had the same feeling that the August 1944 DSC "shipment" might more accurately be considered a virtual inventory that the factory would draw down through time by building and shipping to LE agencies and essential industries as orders were received. I'll keep all interpretations in mind while I wait to see what further evidence might appear.

It's an article of faith with me that needed information always surfaces. If things are to any degree nebulous now, so what? In these later years I have learned patience. We'll have a better understanding of these wartime orders eventually.

In the meantime, thanks once again for delving into these matters and keeping us posted on the current state of your analysis. Much appreciated.

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David Wilson

My pleasure, gentlemen. I continue to pursue this subject (and others!) and have the same faith that you do, David. Someday, somehow I hope to study all the source documents.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

What gets me about this thread is that until I read it, if I would have seen a 2" victory with underlug marked at say $700 I would have walked away a complete dummy.

In Charles Pate's excellent book US Handguns of WWII on the top of page 146 is a discussion of Victory barrel lengths. "Only approximately 800 - 1,300 were originally produced with 2 inch barrels. Some unknown number (in the low thousands) with longer barrels were converted to 2 inch after the war."

If this is correct, a number of the "fakes" and "rebarreled" 2inch revolvers that have been identified today could have been those converted by Smith & Wesson. Would the existing factory records confirm that a Victory was later converted to a 2 inch at the factory?

No, not directly. If a gun shipped with a 4 inch barrel that is how it will letter. If it now has a "correct" 2 inch barrel then it may be a factory conversion.

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Kevin Williams SWCA1649 HF208

Charles Pate’s quote is non-specific and leaves open whether he means factory conversions only or others too. A factory barrel change (and I believe we’ve encountered that here, although my memory fails me as to specifics) should be recognizable by rework star and/or date stamps, and in that case may be documented in correspondence in the SWHF document collection.