Nice package. Would I be correct that the serial number is a little under 505000?
I suggest that number because I think that gun probably shipped in 1929, and there is a known block of RP Targets that left the factory that year. I am assuming -- dangerous, I know -- that the stocks are original and number to the frame. Their design indicates a date in the 1920s, as beginning in 1930 the company's checkered stocks began to carry silver medallions in the rounded tops of each cheek piece. Yet the gun has to be from late in the decade, because the shape of the ejector rod knob is typically what we see on guns of the 1930s. There was only a brief manufacturing period in the late 1920s when these two features would be seen together on a S&W revolver.
Last year I acquired 504907, which is identically configured to the one you show. A quick pic:
Is the box numbered to the gun? I ask rather than presume because I would have expected the label to mention that the included revolver was a target model. But the company did not always have proper labels for the guns it shipped and would press the nearest relevant box into service. If your box numbers to your gun, it might have the annotation "Target" written in pencil on the bottom.
The swab looks to me to be original, but I have not seen a cleaning rod like that as original equipment. I think that was an independent purchase by the gun's original owner and that he just kept it in the box with the gun. I have seen dry fire targets included with target revolvers, but they are from the immediate postwar Masterpiece series and were on the flip side of a card that showed how to adjust the new micro-click rear sights. I think that is what you are describing, so the target you have is an anachronism for that particular revolver. I don't even know if dry fire targets were included with prewar target revolvers. They may well have been, and I simply haven't run across one. I believe the "caution" note could be prewar.
For all their unquestioned scarcity (I doubt more than a thousand were manufactured between 1917 and 1940, and perhaps as few as 800), RP Targets are not outrageously expensive. The best guns (high 90s condition) could go for more than $2000, but the ones I have seen change hands in the 80-95% zone usually sell in the $1250-1750 range. With the box and related gear I think your gun could sell for close to $2000, maybe even a little more if a couple of deep-pockets bidders got into an argument about which of them should get to call himself the next owner. If it appeared in a nationwide auction -- Gunbroker, say -- I would be interested but would probably drop out of the bidding if the price went past $1800. Because of the observable wear, I think the gun itself would be fairly priced at about $1400. It's the box (which if not original to the gun is still mostly correct) and the extras that make the package.
I have been tracking serial numbers on prewar RP Targets for about three years, and I have identified only 32 of them. If you would be willing to PM me the serial number of your gun for a data base I am keeping, I would very much appreciate it. I am a big fan of the prewar adjustable-sight I-frame revolvers in both .32 Long and .22 LR calibers. (As is Hondo44, whose post precedes mine.)
That box is actually called a Display Box or Patent Box by collectors. The company patented the flip-top design that let the top of the box stand up behind the bottom half with the gun in it. The red box is actually a two piece postwar box that is unmistakably red, not maroon or oxblood.
If you are looking at acquiring this one from the current owner I hope you can come to terms with him. It's not a completely original package, but it has some good stuff in it.
Need Reg. Police Target info/value
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