went to a rinky dink little pawn shop today and they had a S&W that looked like my M&P made around 48 but it had a high hammer spur. It was a square butt with no bluing left but no rust either. I didn't get it out of the case to look at it. It was marked at 500.00 and I didn't have 500.00 anyway.

Okay, whatever else, “no bluing left” and $500 don’t go together, unless you mis-diagnosed an unissued Victory model

Assuming it was an M&P, it probably had a C prefix (S is possible), so 1948 or later.

I agree with Absalom. $500 is high for what you described.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

No finish shooter grade K frame .38s routinely sell on Proxibid for around $200.

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Chris
SWCA #2243 SWHF #292

This is my M&P 48-49.



This is the style of hammer it had.



I don't remember what style grips it had other than they were checkered. There was no lanyard ring. Like I said I didn't take it out of the case for a better look. I think it could probably be had for 400.00. I'm not going to buy it regardless.

Well if you're asking if it's rare, it's not. A good number of postwar M&Ps were made with the older hammer.

As mentioned above, they tend to sell for $200 or less with no finish remaining. And as you allude to, talking a pawn shop down from $500 to $200 doesn't happen on anything unless the building is on fire.

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Psalm 27:2

Okay. When you wrote "high hammer spur" I thought you meant it swept up higher. So, I had it backwards.

Your upper picture shows the "high speed" hammer that started in about Feb/Mar 1948. The other one (bottom picture) is the older long action hammer. So, the one you saw in the pawn shop would be either no prefix (from before the war) or an S prefix (early postwar, up to March, 1948).

The stocks shown in your lower photo are from the 1920s.

Added: Of course, the long action was also used during the war, so the pawn shop gun could have a V prefix.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318

I was just curious as to what it was. I had no intention of buying it and I never said I could talk him down to 200 but small out of the way pawn shops like this one will usually dicker. I appreciate all the info.

I just wanna say I've never been much of a S&W guy. I'm 63 and just now starting to appreciate them, so go easy on me when I make stupid posts like this one because I'm probably not done making them.

Inexperience is not stupid. We all learned at some point.

For future reference, if you see a S&W revolver, especially a common model like an M&P, and you’re planning to ask questions, but you can’t take a picture, get the complete serial with any letter prefix (if any) off the butt. Nothing else matters to identify the gun if we have that, not the hammer, not the screw count, whatever.

Agreed. In no way was your post "stupid," Velle. You did the best with what you had.

Welcome to the Forum. I hope you stick around.

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Jack
SWCA #2475, SWHF #318