Some beautiful and rare guns here & thanks for posting all! I have but one Pre Mod 26, SN 793xx, with the satin blue finish. I'm into the 44 Special Smiths and really not paying a lot of attention to the .45 offerings. But over a lot of years collecting, to affirm personally seening very few Model 26/'pre' Smiths. A pix of mine below. I'd say about 98-99%, w/o box. Also have a single Mod 25 with the "Model of 1950" nomenclature.
Nice handguns... Just not 44 Spl!
My take