Just received a letter from S&W for my K38 Combat Masterpiece with Class A engraving.mfg in 1956.(I had hoped that he would indicate who the engraver was.No indication in the letter)
Roy says that it was a display gun for Simon Atlas Co. in Wash.,DC,who returned it to the factory in 1965.From there, it went to Service Armament Co. in NJ,12 days later.(I suppose that I should ask Roy for clarification,ie;was the gun engraved during that twelve days in 1965 or was it engraved when manufactured in 1956,hence it's use for a display item.)
Does anyone have an engraved gun with similar history or can tell me anything about these two companies? (Update: I see,from doing a Google search, that Service Armament was one of those old time mail order firms offering surplus military guns.)
Thank you.

IIRC, Service Armament Co. in NJ was part of Navy Arms.

__________________
John 3:16
WAR EAGLE!

Roy gets his letter info. from the shipping records and in the case of your engraved gun there must have been a notation that in 1956 the gun was sent out on the advertising account ( no cost) to a distributor for display purposes. You are lucky the distributor returned the gun in 1965. Usually they just keep it and eventually S&W writes off the gun. S&W has alwys been reluctant to identify engraves with particular guns, which has cost them the services of several great engravers who became disillusioned with not being allowed to sign their work. Some engravers, like Russ Smith, became very creative in various ways of putting their name or initials in hidden places on a gun they engraved. I feel your gun was probably engraved in 1956, as that would be a clear reason why it was sent out on an advertising memo for display. A non engraved standard gun would never have been handled that way. Somewhere in the S&W archives there should be a 1956 invoice for the gun that will probably list the engraver, or engravers. Sometimes different engravers did different parts of a gun, therefore the whole gun was not the work of a single engraver. Those records are difficult to search and could take days to find, a task impossible for a historical letter program, however those records are at the CVHM and are accessible to researchers, if you have a spare couple of weeks needed to find that invoice.

Thank you very much for the response,Ed.
The letter did not indicate the original ship out date,circa 1956, to Simon Atlas-only when they returned it and the subsequent shipping date to Service Armament.
Can anyone venture a value range for the gun? It remains in perfect,unfired condition.

Based on the info regarding shipping dates as Roy's resource,might I assume that the lack of an original shipping date in 1956,infers that the gun might have been hand delivered by a sales rep?

Camster,

Can you post a picture of your gun? It sounds really beautiful.
Thanks.

-Erik

Thank you-it is on my list of things to do,as I, myself, love to see pics of guns,and appreciate the efforts of fellow members..I don't recall seeing a factory engraved K38 here on the forum-most postings are of N frames.
Gotta read up on the photo techniques of others as my photo work leaves a lot to be desired.