This is just in incredible!

Check out this message from Cal as posted in the prewar section:

Arlo/Onomea;
I sent you an email with two photos I have here of the gun. The gun was presented to Phil Roettinger by S & W in early 1942 for winning a match in Floriday, and it is engraved on the gun. He landed with the gun at Guadalcanal and later used it on Bouganville. He kept the gun through those actions -- place names (engraved by him) are on the gun as to where he used it in action. Later he became Station Chief for the C.I.A./Latin America, and kept the gun with him. He even arranged to have the gun registered here in Mexico as a "legal" firearm, which the .357 Magnum does not qualify for.

If you can post the photos, tell me in which thread you have done so and I will go there and tell you all I know about the gun. I do not know if it was a Registered Magnum or not, but perhaps you can tell from the photos. I do not believe there is ANYTHING written on the inside of the crane-yoke, but I will check when I go home today. But I think there is just NOTHING there, although there might be a serial number. I will check.
Thanks for letting me know a bit more about my gun. I knew it was quite valuable, and even more so because here in Mexico the .357 Magnum is illegal. This one was registered, and is registerd to me now by the Mexican Army. I cannot legally take it out and shoot it (although I do now and then as I have stated) but I can own it and most people down here cannot dream of owning a .357 without significant legal risks.
Cheers! http://smith-wessonforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/5301039...391030332#2391030332

Here’s the pix:







On page 24 of the Jinks article, it says, “The last of the prewar Magnums were the 79 units finished in December, 1940. Three more magnums were built during World War II; two units in 1941 and one in 1942. No doubt these were for special high ranking officials.”

Friend Cal has the last pre-postwar magnum!! (Can’t very well call it the last prewar magnum if it was built in 1942.) A Non Registered Magnum. A very, very unique gun.

Man-o-man. Wow!