Dating a K-22 by serial number

Please bear with what might seem a basic question, but as a relative newcomer who only recently discovered his .38 Smith appears to be a fairly early K-38 (who knew?) I'm now keen on beginning the hunt for a K-22.

Through the conversations here I realize there are several general variations in the model linked to years or production, and at risk of oversimplifying things, is there a general range of serial numbers which will help date production of a K-22?

Thanks.

Yes...any K-22 without a letter prefix before the SN would be pre-WW II. The K prefix guns started after WW II to 1970; a number before and after the K to 1983; and then the three-letter prefix with the number after this to the present.

If you find one, you can post the prefix letter(s) and a partial number, like K 123xxx, and someone can tell you the ship year and how it should be configured. Hope this is helpful.

murphydog said:

someone can tell you the ship year

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All good info MD,but pardon me for picking a small nit. Serial number will give you the year of manufacture,but not necessarily the year the gun shipped. Could be years of difference.
f.t.

f.t.:

You are correct, the data tables will give the production and not the shipping year. I was going on the assumption that a popular model like the K-22 would have shipped soon after production, more so than lower production or less popular guns, but that never holds 100% with S & W as you know.

I recently saw a 17-1 for sale with a 1967 era serial number...that frame must have sat for at least 6 years before being finished.

Welcome to the Forum

Why dont you give us the serial number of your gun (you can X out the last few digits if you are paranoid) and we can give you an approximate date. Also, frames shared serial number blocks among models. In other words there would have been K22's, K32's and K38's all sharing the same serial number range. It is even possible to have consecutive serial number guns that are different models as Smith didnt do things in serial number order.

29aholic said:

Why dont you give us the serial number of your gun (you can X out the last few digits if you are paranoid) and we can give you an approximate date. Also, frames shared serial number blocks among models. In other words there would have been K22's, K32's and K38's all sharing the same serial number range. It is even possible to have consecutive serial number guns that are different models as Smith didnt do things in serial number order.

Click to expand...

Thanks I did not know that.

Ok guys: Mine's a 17-4, serial number 79K118X. Thanks for the help.
Chris.

RangeRover, Welcome & good luck finding your K-22. The hunt is half the fun.

Chriss, Welcome, your question should be posted in the 80's section, as your 17-4 was built around July of 1980.

Notime2

f.t.

I think you have it switched around. Serial numbers will indicate
when the gun was shipped. There is no information available as to
when the gun was manufactured - generally.

Later, Mike Priwer

Hey Mike. I thought I had it right,but it wouldn't be the first time I was wrong. Are you saying that a run of guns would be manufactured without serial numbers and stamped only when scheduled to be shipped? I'm confused. Please elaborate.
f.t.

I believe what Mike means is that the gun data maintained by Smith and Wesson only revealed the ship date. The actual date of manufacture isn't something they kept in the archives.
That is how I believe it is.

bdGreen

The preface to the serial number section in the back of the SCSW says the data refer to "probable production era" for a model and serial number range, so I am led to believe the book dates are based on production years. I also thought the factory went by ship dates in recording production, so it is a little confusing to me.

RangeRover, I'd like to suggest you get yourself a copy of the Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson, 3rd Edition. It can be found at bookstores or online. It has info on all the models, the changes each one went through, as well as (approx) dates of manufacture.

Smith and Wesson made a lot of guns. We sometimes debate their efficiency at tracking serials. Part of our confusion comes from us not having a clear idea of how and when they were assigned, and how and when assembly numbers were assigned. Its also probably important that those methods may have changed over time (remember, they've been in business for a while.)

S&W is known to hold blocks of numbers for some purposes. It means if they want to build a comemmorative, all the guns have sequential numbers. Or sometimes, anyhow. It doesn't mean they were all completed the same day or week, just that someone went to the effort to assure they had similar numbers.

From what I can glean from the books on the subject, S&W logs in guns when they move from production/inspection to the "vault", the place where they're shipped from. The letters we beg from Roy indicate another date, the date they're shipped from the vault. It may be important that those may be the same day, or a date years later.

Some guns were hot sellers. S&W is a business. They, like all other business entities have cash flow problems and concerns. If they have a completed gun, and a willing customer, they ship it. They also completed some batch blocks of guns. Its just cheaper and easier to build the same configuration guns at the same time. Even if there isn't a ready and willing customer.

We also know S&W made some ugly ducklings. Many of us don't feel that way today... But there was a time frame where you almost couldn't give away a Heavy Duty or Outdoorsman. Or K32s. So they languished. Probably in the vault.

All an adjacent serial number means is that the guns were probably in production at the same time, maybe even side by side for a few steps in the production process, maybe separated on different racks, too. We just don't know and Roy hasn't indicated if records exist of various guns in various stages. Its probably safe to say many gun frames were sequentially numbered at about the same time. Its an internal control issue.

But we also find guns from time to time where the factory has no records of them existing. Its not unusual for one of us to blow our meager allowances on letters. Only to get one back that says "Open on Company books." We have no idea what that phrase really means, but probably any of a number of things, including stolen (lunchbox guns), destroyed during production, pulled out for some reason and never shipped or sold, given to an employee for whatever reason, etc. I've got a beautiful early Centennial that came back that way. It just happens.

We seem to read way to much into serial numbers. A lot of are willing to pay a premium, some time a multiple of fair market, just to obtain a desireable number. I've done it before and I'll do it again. The family (my family) owns 2 637s. Younger son covets the one with a "CCW" prefix. Two reasons, he doesn't clean his guns, and the CCW is new/pristine, and its just a cool number. Sebago Son owns a K22. He mercilessly lofts it over my head because he located it in a chicken coop, and because it has K117 on the underside. All I've managed to score are K155 and K166. And I was mad at Blake (one of our posters) because he let K141 escape to an unwashed heathen owner. The guy who owned K137 wouldn't sell it to me, nor would the owner of K188.

So maybe I should rephrase the first sentence of that last paragraph. I read way too much into serial numbers!

f.t.

B D Green has it right . Researching serial numbers, by the historian,
starts with the shipping ledgers. These were ( and perhaps still are)
bound volumes that were pre-printed with serial numbers, in numerical
order. There are several sets of these books, because there were
different models with the same serial numbers.

When a gun was shipped, its serial number was located in the right
book, and the shipping date, and destination are recorded in the book,
on the line that contains its preprinted serial number. This is where
all history starts. And, as you can see, this scheme is independent
of when the gun was actually manufactured.

Given a serial number, and a model, the shipping ledger yeilds one of
two pieces of information. Either there is a shipping date, or the
rest of the line is blank, meaning that the serial number is open on
the shipping ledger.

Assuming there is a shipping date, that now becomes the key into
the invoice ledgers, which are books ordered by shipping date. Knowing
the shipping date, and the destination, the historian goes through
those entries ( all together ) , and tries to locate the invoice by using
the destination information ( name of person/business receiving the
gun). Once the invoice is located, then hopefully it will contain
information on how the gun was configured, if it was special.

Sometimes the invoices have useful information, sometimes not.
Sometimes target revolvers are identified as such, sometimes not.
The price of the revolver is on the invoice, of course, and from that
the historian can tell if the gun had adjustable, or fixed sights.

Note that nowhere in any of this research trail is the date of
manufacture.

Regards, Mike Priwer

Thanks you Dick & Mike, your posts clear-up some mysteries for me!
For a specific question: Where would K-22 Outdoorsman #6444XX fit into the equation?

The factory manufactured frames in "runs". 100 or 1,000 or even perhaps 5,000. As these runs were done, the frames were each given a serial number. The parts were also given an assembly number to keep all of the matching and hand fitted parts together during the assembly process. Even stocks that were fitted to the frame received a serial number. Once the guns were completed, they were boxed and stored in the vault awaiting shipment. IIRC, the factory even jumped around within given serial number blocks just to keep the competition from figuring out how many guns they were producing at any given point in time.

When an order was received for a given model, the shipping clerk went into the vault and pulled the necessary guns for shipment. The clerk did not pay attention to serial number order as these were pieces of inventory and he only needed a correct number of the correct model to fill the order. The serial numbers were recorded as they left the factory for inventory control purposes but not as a method of dating the guns manufacture.

S&W was in the business to make and sell guns in the present and did not think about how crazy collectors would get at some future time about serial numbers and their relationship to dates.

The books can give you a range of serial numbers used for a particular model and the basic years that these guns were manufactured, however, looking at a serial number chart does not give you the actual manufacture or shipping date. Only the company historian can give you that by looking up the serial number in the shipping ledgers.

We have seen many cases where a lower serial number gun has a shipping date far later than a gun with a higher serial number.

It is possible that somewhere there are records, like the day books, that show what serial numbered guns were built on any given day and hence supply the date of manufacture, but the historian uses the shipping records and thus those are the shipping date.

I hope that this helps. It sounds confusing, but it really isn't if you think about it.

The Smith & Wesson Historical Foundation and its effort to digitize the company records may afford future collectors the ability to search a given serial number and find all relevant company records and correspondence pertaining to that gun. Unfortunately, that is thousands of investment dollars away. So support the SWHF by sending what you can today!!!

SDH said:

Thanks you Dick & Mike, your posts clear-up some mysteries for me!
For a specific question: Where would K-22 Outdoorsman #6444XX fit into the equation?

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As the owner of 646390, I'll take a run at that one. Your gun probably shipped in 1933 or 1934. Mine shipped in April 1934.

More enlightening perspective from James...
And thank you David!

Many thanks gentlemen. I don't know if I have enough active brain cells left to store all that I wish to know.
f.t.