Quote:
Originally Posted by headwaters
I'm a little confused, which isn't that unusual, but most often I can sort it out before embarrassing myself in public...which I am probably about to do.
Based upon expert testimony, there were only 1067 of the .22-40s built, and most of the examples here fall into the 684xxx range, and yet bdGreen shows a pair serialed at 691386 and 691387. Did I miss something? Is there a reason for the break in the numbering?
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The K-22 Outdoorsman, K-22/40 and .38 M&P were all numbered in the same serial number series. It was not uncommon for the company to produce, say, a few hundred of one model, a few hundreds (or even thousands) more of another model, and then go back go make more of the first one. Sometimes, for reasons of their own, they produced and numbered frames out of strict serial sequence, later going back to fill in the blanks. Serialization studies can be a big deal among S&W collectors.
Another example: there are only 1200-1500 prewar .22/32 Kit Guns, and their numbers are found grouped in small blocks (200-300, say) within a range of about 5000 serial numbers. The other numbers were assigned to other I-frame models (or possibly even not used, which seems to have happened from time to time).