A letter will tell you original finish but no details of return trips to the factory would be with the original shipping record. If you remove the stocks, the left side lower left front corner will usually bear any date codes for factory work. Usually a refinish will also win you a * on the frame butt and sometimes under the barrel on the barrel flat.

The date code will look like 6 68 or 6.68 indicating in this example June of 1968. Some guns will have two or three of these date codes indicating that the gun went back seberal times for improvements.

I would guess that your gun is serialed in the low 20's or high teens by that date. I have a 129 that shipped in April 1955.

__________________
James Redfield
LM #497