True, true. But still, only one S&W prewar magnum model (RM/NRM), and they were all shipped with grooved hammers. I was reacting to "I knew that early RMs had the grooved hammers, but I never knew that all of the prewar guns did."

Are the grooved hammers on early 1917s identical to the RM grooved hammers with the exception of the markings?

On the old RM crowd theory that the factory removed the grooved hammers and replaced them with whatever hammer was contemporary to the time of factory repair, what is the theory on what the factory did with those beautiful grooved hammers? (Surely the hammers were worth more at the time than the wooden grips, and also hammers don't wear like grips so just giving them heave-ho seems mighty profligate..)

Ya know, I've heard that theory about the prewar grips being replaced will-nilly, and that makes sense to me, as a well-intentioned customer service freebee at the time, but with hammers.... As an RM whippersnapper (relatively speaking anyway !), I dunno if I buy that. In addition to being more expensive than a wooden grip to produce -- I assume so, anyway -- the new hammers would need some fitting, too, no? And that would be labor intensive, right?