Saxon,

As you know, there are many degrees of Reg. Mag. collector. At the apex are those who are only interested in pristine examples or extremely rare variations (they won't look at your gun). At the bottom of the pyramid are those masses of folks who would give whatever they could scrape together for a representative example of what they consider the pinnacle of the gun making art, no matter what its condition (yours is too nice for these folks). In between those extremes are those who collect guns that "speak to them" (perhaps a police marked/used gun or one that the original user modified to more accurately meet their needs).

I believe that your gun falls in that last category, primarily because of the UHP marking. I also have a couple of police RM's (a KyHP and a Dallas PD) that are refinished. Neither are as original as others in my collection, but frankly, I hold them in just as high esteem as I do the originals because of their history. When I go to sell them, I acknowledge that unless I find a like minded buyer, the two police guns will go for less than the originals.

I recall your angst when you first got that gun and discovered the replaced hammer. Replacement hammers can be found occasionally. Several years ago a former member here sold one on an auctions for $400. I needed one to replace one on an RM that had had the spur modified and I contacted that member, but too late to buy it. As it turns out, he had another and offered it to me for $300. He was a good friend and because I knew that he could sell it online for $400, I sent him a check for $400 because I valued his friendship more than the $100. I was very happy to find it and he was happy to get what he could have sold it for on the open market.

It might be possible to buy one for less but I think you might factor in a diminished value of $300-400 when you price your gun because that is an estimate of what it will cost you or the new owner to put it right. (We'd pay that for a good original set of grips and the grips are far more common than the hammers!)

I would expect that the best chance to find an RM hammer will be at the SWCA annual meeting in Tucson in July. I'll keep my eyes open for you and I expect others will be glad to do the same.

As far as pricing your gun goes, I imagine that Fisher, Priwer, and Ballentine have bought and sold more high dollar guns than all the rest of us combined so I would put a lot of weight on their comments.

Bob