UPDATE with letter--Rairity and Value - PreWar 2" M&P

Not wanting to hijack the other thread, I have a few questions. Just how rare are the 2" M&P's? Any idea how many were produced? What would the approximate value be of one in, lets say 85%? It's not reblued and has no star at the serial no. nor any return dates stamped in the grip frame. Just holster wear and a graying grip frame. It does have a perfect action and timing and lockup are perfect.

I picked this one up a few years back off of an auction site. It was wearing a pair of post war magnas, I had these grips that it wears now. I appreciate all replys.

I sent for a letter today.






I received the letter from Roy today. It states: We have researched your Smith & Wesson .38 Military & Police Model of 1905 Fourth Change, State of Massachusetts Contract, caliber .38 S&W Special, revolver in company records which indicate that your handgun, with serial number 626519 was shipped from our factory on April 20, 1934, and delivered to George F. Harold Co., New York City, NY for the State of Massachusetts. The records indicate that this revolver was shipped with a 2 inch barrel, blue finish, and checkered black hard rubber round butt grips. This shipment was for 15 units all in the same configuration and they were billed at $19.07 each.

Now I guess I gotta find a pair of correct grips.

There is one known order to produce 250 units. They weren't all built at the same time, and I'm not sure we know that all 250 were completed before WWII interrupted standard commercial production. There may have been some very short production runs for which we have no separate documentary evidence. At any rate, they are rarely seen and very much sought after by a few collectors. There won't be a standard price for an average unit. Bidding will determine the value of a particular revolver as it becomes available. I have seen them advertised at $2000-3000. I would love to have a prewar snubnose M&P, but given my general pre-war interests there other uncommon models that I would spend that much money on before I would go after one of these.

Yours looks like a very nice specimen, by the way.

I suppose fakes are a fact of life where value is so high. Anybody in the market for one would have to make sure he's not looking at a later two-inch barrel and shorter ejector rod added to a standard 1930s M&P frame.

How about a serial number range?

Probably ought to get a set of the hard rubber stocks for this one, regardless.

Rarity? My estimatiuon would be that they're not common per se, but certainly not so hard to find as, say, a Registered Magnum or a K-22/40. Value? Pricing seems to be all over the place on these. To some collectors, they're just another Military & Police, while others think the snubnose concept was a significant development and that the early ones ought to command a substantial premium.

Edit: I'd disagree with David on the notion that very few of these were made. I base my evaluation on the rarity of these partly on how widely spread out the serial number range and shipping dates are for known examples.

I wanted to add the serial no. in the original post and forgot. It is 626519. Also wanted to add that there is hardly any cylinder line, it was definately carried much more than fired. I should have got it lettered when I bought it, but with the recent posts about the 2" M&P's it got me to thinking, I had no idea they were that rare. I can't wait to see what the letter says.

I've seen RM's for sale, even NRM's, I have one of each, but this is the only 2" Prewar M&P I've ever seen. I guess that shoulda told me something.

Thanks for the info. I'll post what the letter says when it arrives.

Thanks

I've seen about 9 registered magnums for sale in the last 3 years.
How many pre war factory 2" M&Ps? ZERO!

There is a clear distinction as to configuration vs rarity of this model, round butt, blue being the most often seen. Given the condition, I would have no problem being in the $750 + range. High condition examples will approach $2K with nickel a little more and square butts about 50% more than that.

Noone knows for sure how many were made but they are not common and in high condition, are rare. I know I've been collecting this variant for at least 11 years and have bought every one I have found for sale. I own 10. That puts them in the "pretty darn hard to find" category to me.

Nice gun, thanks for showing it and if you ever think it needs a new home, you know who to call.

some where in the engineering orders I think there was a order to make 250 or 500 2 inch Barrels. I think the date was 1930 or 1931. its been a few years since I saw the paper work.
The one I have is 626138 and it is open in the records.
Jim Fisher

bmg60 said:

some where in the engineering orders I think there was a order to make 250 or 500 2 inch Barrels. I think the date was 1930 or 1931. its been a few years since I saw the paper work.
The one I have is 626138 and it is open in the records.
Jim Fisher

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Hi Jim

Order was for 250, blue, round butt, issued on June 29, 1933. Is yours a blue round butt?

Mike

Neal & Jinks, p. 236:

June 29, 1933: Order to make 250 .38 H.E. 2" barrels for round butt blue revolvers per H. Wesson.

So I misremembered that the count of 250 was specifically connected to round butt blue revolvers. That leaves room for several dozen more units of the nickel and square butt persuasions. (Though of course some of the 250 barrels intended for RB blue revolvers might have been mounted on blue SB frames instead.)

I still don't think there can have been more than about 300-400 of these prewar snubnose M&Ps, tops. If more were made, where are they all?

EDITED TO ADD: Ah, Mike reported in while I was still researching and typing.

DCWilson said:

Neal & Jinks, p. 236:

June 29, 1933: Order to make 250 .38 H.E. 2" barrels for round butt blue revolvers per H. Wesson.

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I'd interpret this as authorizing an initial production run that I believe was followed by others. I'm going to post a question to Roy on this topic.

Mike
My revolver is a blue round butt 97% with black hard rubber grips all original.
My guess is it was given to a salesman that did not make a entry in the shipping records.
Jim

DCWilson said:

I still don't think there can have been more than about 300-400 of these prewar snubnose M&Ps, tops. If more were made, where are they all?

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Roy (for those of you who may not know, I'm referring to Roy Jinks, Smith & Wesson's Historian) has replied to my query. His estimate, without researching the records, is that a total of 1,500 2' barreled Military & Police revolvers were produced in the 1933 to 1941 period.

As to the question you've posed, I think it's important to remember that this configuration of the M&P would have been typically purchased as a "working" gun, and thus much more often than not carried a lot. It's my understanding that many were acquired by law enforcement agencies, also. That combination of circumstances suggests that the survival rate might be somewhat lower than the norm.

Goony said:

Roy (for those of you who may not know, I'm referring to Roy Jinks, Smith & Wesson's Historian) has replied to my query. His estimate, without researching the records, is that a total of 1,500 2' barreled Military & Police revolvers were produced in the 1933 to 1941 period.

As to the question you've posed, I think it's important to remember that this configuration of the M&P would have been typically purchased as a "working" gun, and thus much more often than not carried a lot. It's my understanding that many were acquired by law enforcement agencies, also. That combination of circumstances suggests that the survival rate might be somewhat lower than the norm.

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Excellent information, though a little unexpected to me. Thank you for bringing up the question with the best source of information one could hope for.

I have documented the occurrence of these for years and still update that data each time one shows up. My intent has always been to write an article once I have a sample of 100 in the database. Total as of this morning is 54. I may not live long enough.

Seems low survival rate might be an understatement.

If anyone has one that I may not have in the data, please shoot me a PM or email and I'll add it. Please include finish, grip configuration (RB or SB), grip type (black rubber or wood), shipping date and location if lettered. Also, if lettered, how many in the shipment of that configuration.

I don't track who owns them, just the gun data.

Mike, very interesting numbers. Thank you for providing them.

For the last four years I have been tracking the similarly uncommon Prewar .22/32 Kit Gun (mfd. 1936-1940, with a few shipping in 1941). As in the case of the prewar 2" M&P, exact production numbers have not been determined, but estimates have been made on statistical grounds. Some collectors have said they think no more than 1000 Prewar KGs were produced; after running some simple cluster analysis on serial number ranges of known specimens, I think the true number is between 1200 and 1500. As in the case of the model you study and collect, the question of how many have survived is a central issue in their current scarcity.

I have tabulated 55 different serial numbers of these Prewar KGs, and I have seen pictures of or references to four to six other guns whose serial numbers I was not able to trap. (I was originally careless about taking note of specimens I could not number, so my count on them is a little vague.) My impression is that Kit Guns change hands today a little more frequently than do the prewar 2" M&Ps, though I am doing my part to slow down that velocity in coming years.

If there is any correlation to be drawn between the statistics of these two models, I can see that Roy's total production estimate of 1500 2" M&Ps is not out of the question.

In any event, there is no question that there are now far fewer specimens of either model for collectors to chase. I think Goony's point about "working" LE guns is a good one; there may well be different loss rates for different models of handgun, and one would expect different manners of loss as well. I have suspected that more than a few KGs ended up in rivers or lost in the woods while being pocket carried or "kit" carried as the company marketing proposed.

When I was a kid in the 1950's, I read a book about the FBI, probably one of that series of informative books by C.B. Colby, if you recall them. It had a photo of a wall of guns in their reference library in the main FBI building of that time, in D.C. One gun on the wall was a snub M&P, with rubber grips. (Yes, I began studying guns at a tender age, and i did recognize it.) So, we know where one of those went!

Also, those early snub barrels are distinctive, with the lettering and the half-nickel front sight. Those persisted into some examples made in the 1950's, I think, after the "squiggle" (Speed) hammer appeared and postwar Magna grips. I strongly suspect that S&W made enough barrels in the 1930's to tide them over to making at least some postwar snub M&P's. That suggests that prewar production of that version wasn't vast. I believe that those wanting a compact .38 preferred the smaller Colt Detective Special or they carried the smaller Terrier .38 in .38 S&W. The arrival of the Chief's Special in 1950 was surely a joyous occasion for those wanting a smaller .38 Special S&W!

bmg60 said:

My guess is it was given to a salesman that did not make a entry in the shipping records.

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Salesman samples can letter as such, but only because Roy knows who those individuals were when a gun was shipped to them. But if as you conjecture, the salesman was given the gun while at the factory, then yes, it could show as "open on the books." More intriguing possibilities are that the gun was presented to a dignitary while at the factory, or diverted for testing or publicity purposes. Or, with that short barrel, maybe it was a "lunchbox" gun. Of course, the most likely cause - a simple clerical error.

First, Roy said it is a "difficult question" and he GUESSED "it is about 1500 units". He went on to say his guess was not based on facts.
I think that is a high guess.
Like Mike, I have observed, or TRIED to observe them for decades.
They just ain't out there.

The June 1933 order is an order to make 250 barrels, not guns. I do not believe they built 250 guns that year and stacked them in the vaults.
S&W had been "bitten by the turkey" enough already! Remember the market FAILURES they had already been through-
44 DA- still catalogged up to about WW I, even though the frames were built before 1898...
Triple Lock - yes, even the TL was a market turkey.
Revolving Rifle
35 Auto
32 Auto
22 Straightline
32/20 HE - remember, in 1933, there are 32/20's stacked in the vault with non-medallion grips, even though the grips had silver meds from 29-30 on....

Before the 50's, 2" barrels were not a common choice. In the early decades of the HE's, FOUR inch barrels were considered "short"! Note that you are less likely to see 4" M&P's and 32/20's before WW I than the 5, 6, or 6-1/2.
4" TL's are rare.
5" TL's are scarce.
Most 44-2nd's are 6-1/2.
The 44-3rd's are mostly 5", and that would be because W&K planned from the outset to be selling them to LEO's, so the 5" was considered plenty small enough for daily holster duty!
The 3-1/2 Mag had not yet appeared in 33.

Sure, there had been some short top-breaks, notably the "Bicycle " guns, but they are rare, and probably built to order. Not many were bought.

So, we arrive at my point-
The TWO inch M&P was NOT a high demand item. People were not clamoring for them. I suspect there were never more than a very few in the vault, if any. I think most were built to order, or to replace a 1/2 dozen for the vault. There was never any great demand for them, and S&W was wise enough by then to NOT stack the vault full of turkeys.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that all 250 barrels were used before WW II.

On the nickel-
Yes, the order says "for blue round butt", but that does not mean they would not build a nickel on order. But, nickel is so rare you need not worry about it!

On the square butts-
I have recently acquired a SB built in Sept, 1937. It was shipped to an individual, so I assume it was specil ordered. Otherwise, most (or all other?) square butts I have seen shipped after the factory was involved in WW II production (BSR's). I believe they exist because the factory had no RB frames on hand to fill 2" orders. In other words, they may have built SB's before the war, but I believe they were special orders and the factory never intended to offer them.

On survivability-
Some of the letters I have seen show LE sales. It might have been a rather high %, but I am not sure of that.
Even so, LE weapons don't have a bad survival rate. They often have condition issues, but survival is good. There is rather high accountability for LE weapons!
Also- of the LE letters I have seen, I think many are personal purchase of duty weapons, like sheriffs and high ranks buying their own. People take care of their own fancy little guns usually.

Lee, no offense intended, and you make good arguments...

But Roy sees the company records day in and day out. I'd take his "guess" as an extremely informed one, and in fact would give that more weight than any or all of our speculation however persuasive it may be.

No offense taken.
A guess is a guess.
I still think 1500 is way high.

We'll know one day. Once someone takes the time to search the digitized records for those years, all the 2" M&P invoices can be pulled up and counted.