Opinions on this engraved- UPDATE--Factory Letter Received

Hank

Congrats on a fine revolver! I am the owner of the gun that RKMesa referenced - a lettered Oscar Young engraved 1903 32 1st change target, like yours, except mine has a blued finish with the 4.25 in barrel. Just like you, I went with my instincts despite the nay-sayer "experts" who probably don't own engraved guns, yet will freely comment on factory vs non-factory engraving, and the like. I am pleased that you got straight answers in the thread after the plethora of misinformation that was posted! I guess some people like to chime in whether or not they actually know anything about Oscar Young, engraving in general, or early S&W target HE revolvers. Personally, when I first opened the thread I thought the gun looked very legit. It reminded me of mine, and another one that I nearly bought. Gun engraving is certainly another realm all together when it comes to gun collecting. To look at a revolver and assess the engraver's talent, or the origin, or time period, etc. takes a lot experience and guessing about it helps no one. Imagine if you would have sold it for $300 as a refinished, after market engraved gun with "fake" pearls (as some surmised you revolver to be), imagine how you would feel now. I'm glad you got the info you needed.

Its beautiful

Note on the grips - in my experience, having owned several factory pearl gripped guns which lettered with pearl, and owning several pairs of spare factory pearl grips (I collect S&W grips ) the easiest way to tell is simply the presence of the medallion. Its very rare for pearl grips to have gold recessed medallions but be aftermarket. Another way to tell is the backside of the grips, S&W pearl grips are thicker and heavier, and they don't usually have scalloped portions on the inside of the panels. Since the gun was special order, chances are it did in fact ship with the pearls.

Thanks Jim!!
The forum has been so helpful and I truly learn something every time I lurk here.
This one will be lettered as soon as possible and I will update as soon as I receive the info on how it left the factory.
Hank

change of heart

i've always disliked plated guns. never cared much for engraving. swore i'd never buy one with pearl grips. thought target sites on a pocket gun were a silly affectation. that being said, the op is lucky i didn't see this one before he did. color me green with envy.
iron mike

After a brief wait, the letter arrived today. Its such a joy to have the unopened letter in my hands. Its like Christmas, the anticipation is so much fun..
Anyway, here is the letter. I should mention that a number of you had surmised that the gun was pulled from stock as a blued revolver and then had the engraving and plating done and pearl stocks added as a special order prior to shipment.


All I can say is you guys were exactly right!! So much collected knowledge on this forum!! Thanks for sharing, all the input, and help!! I will contact the historical society and see if they can pull any more info..
Hank

I would not have thought that to be factory engraving. That's why I am not an expert. Original factory pearls, to boot. Excellent. A rare target model with engraving and factory pearls. Lord have mercy.

Heck of a score there, I'm jealous. Congratulations again!

Congrats on a great find.....

Cool, glad to be wrong about the engraving!

Nice find. It is frustrating that S&W records from this period generally do not have any address info on single special order guns like this because there is a good chance that F.P. Hall will turn out to be an interesting person at that time. My only gun lettered to an individual like this fortunately had a monogram to add additional information and allow me to identify who it was shipped to and uncover a fascinating history that is still unfolding. I don't know that your chances for identifying this owner definitively are high, but good luck on a rare search.

cb

JACKPOT!!!!!!!! That's a REALLY neat gun on SO many levels! Now we need a range report

Congrats. Your gun has that extra WOW factor of having been a standard service sighted blue gun sitting in the vault that S&W obviously pulled to redo as a nickel target gun for Mr. Hall's special order. There may be an invoice in the archives at S&W ( Springfield History Museum ) that has better info. on who ordered the gun etc. Roy's letters reflect only what the shipping records show and an invoice search is beyond anything Roy's time allows. The manufacturing log and the "B" stamp clearly show the gun was first made as a standard service sighted blue gun and went to the vault in that configuration. I have found that scenario to be true more times than one might suspect - that it was a quicker way to fill and order to take a finished gun, send it to the service department, and redo or alter it as necessary., and it will letter as whatever the alteration posed, since it is a "new" gun from the factory, not a gun returned for the redo. Ed.

Glad it lettered out right.
Good for you!

opoefc said:

Roy's letters reflect only what the shipping records show and an invoice search is beyond anything Roy's time allows.

Click to expand...

The shipping records are large books that were custom printed to list serial numbers line by line-

1234
1235
1236
1237

There is a book for each serial number sequence:
I Frames
K Frames (38 cal)
K Frames (32/20)
N Frames
455s
1917s
etc, etc

There was a space for the ship date to be written.
There was a space for the receiver's name. For dealers and distributors that received a lot of guns, they had a rubber stamp made.

So, the shipping logs will only tell Roy the date and recipient of a specific gun. Other than knowing what model or frame it is, there is NO data about the gun in the ship log.
NO mention of finish or barrel length or sights or grips.
On the I frames numbered together, like the 32 HE and the 22/32s, I THINK they are all in the same log, so Roy won't even know the caliber by the ship log data.

It is my understanding that Roy calls or faxes a date and serial number to the museum, and THEY pull the invoice for him and give him the gun's data.
The invoices are filed by date.
Invoices are dated the day the gun shipped.
So, Roy says "Invoice for Dec 8, 1937, 38 M&P(cause he got the date from the K Frame M&P Log Book), # [FONT=&quot]664337."
[/FONT] That is the only way he can give us the finish, barrel length, type of grips, sights, custom features, etc.
I'm sure he usually does this in "batches" of several guns.
NONE of that data is in the shipping logs.

When your gun comes back as the dreaded "OPEN on the Books", it means that serial number line is BLANK (as in 'Open') in the shipping records.
That means there is NO date known for the gun leaving.
Again, invoices are filed by date, so even if an invoice was ever made up, there is no convenient way to search for it.
People always start chattering about Open guns being stolen when that was rarely, if ever, the case.
Guns were signed out to salesmen on memos.
Guns were sent to PDs and other entities for evaluation on memos.
Guns were displayed in various places in the Factory for YEARS, and then sold, and maybe not logged properly because they figured it was done years before.
Guns were taken to big matches and given as trophies, and probably weren't always logged properly because they were charged as "Advertising".
I think some guns were given as gifts, and possibly never properly logged out, either through carelessness or poor or incomplete communication. I know for a fact of several guns Hellstrom gave away, and I bet ol' D.B. gave a few away.
I've owned five guns that were Open on the Books, and two of them had unusual features. Were they gifts or 'samples'?
In large shipments, I think numbers sometimes just got missed in the rush to ship!
Two other Open guns I owned were common 38 M&Ps that fell right in the middle of military orders- one in WW II, the other during the Korean War.
The fifth gun was a Model 57.
You have to remember ATF as we know it hasn't always existed, and they weren't as tough or as strong or as demanding in the early days.

Lee, Thanks for the informative posting the above info. Many collectors are unfamiliar with the process Roy goes through to create the factory historical letters. Let me add some additional info about the records. Invoices for work done on guns returned to the factory are filed by the name of the person returning the gun under the month & year file box for when the work was completed. The Floor Foremen's Daily production log for the manufacturing of S&Ws records each gun by serial number and the date the production order was completed and the guns were sent to the vault. Noted is the number of guns ordered, type of finish, and any extra info. such as an engineering change, or if the gun is to be a Target Model, or any special features. Typically orders to the Floor Foreman would be like " 100 blue guns and 50 plated guns" of each model. Logs were kept by Model numbers. The Foremen would record that order in the log, assign 150 serial numbers to it and typically record production in the log in batches of 25 to 50 serial numbers, or multiples thereof, by date that the guns were completed. Up until around WW1 workers at S&W were hired and supervised by Floor Foreman who contracted with S&W to make guns and they were paid by piece rate for guns produced, a common practice in the industry, therefore it was necessary to have a system that recorded production in order to correctly compensate workers for their efforts. Hope this helps. Ed.

handejector said:

The shipping records are large books ...........

Click to expand...

I just edited Post # 52 for clarification and to add data.

Wow

what a fantastic little revolver. reading the opinions of the experts
also leaves me in awe.
i should quit reading this forum. there was a time i would have scoffed at the thought of spending five dollars on a good cigar. lately i've been seen leaving the store with the twenty buck numbers. you know; just this once, to satisfy my curiosity.
maybe i'll quit smoking and start looking at fancier s&ws.
iron mike

What a beautiful gun. My guess is that it is worth much more than the prices quoted. I'm thinking $3,000 or more.

Lee, that explains how Roy can come up with a ship date for members without too much trouble, but the amount of work it takes to produce a letter. All the more reason to continue to help the Historical Foundation to digitize more records.

It is beyond me how I could have missed this thread when it was first active. I'm glad to have caught up with it.

I agree this is a stunning example of a rarely seen configuration. I know of only one other .32 HE Target with a 3.25" barrel -- 49183. That gun is not engraved. No, I don't have it. I found a reference to it someplace that I neglected to record.

49857 is also an engraved gun, but not nickel. Its barrel is 4.25". This gun was sold on Gunbroker about three years ago.

The only 1903/first change target revolvers I know -- there are six of them -- have serial numbers in the 49xxx or 50xxx sequences. As the letter posted above details, the whole serial number range of the first change guns is 19426-51126. Maybe it's just a fluke that the known target varieties clump up at the end of the production sequence, but maybe it's not.

In the aggregate, I now know of 42 .32 HE Target revolvers produced between 1896 and 1917. That covers the first and second models. There are about as many known Regulation Police targets from the period 1917-1940. Under any identification, the prewar .32 HE target revolvers are not often encountered.

There was an F.P. Hall Company in Columbus, Ohio. State economic activity reports assert that the firm dealt in hardware and sundries. F.P. Hall himself is identified as a participant in a Columbus trap shooting event in 1910. Maybe he's the guy who got this fine revolver, or perhaps he just ordered it through his business as a prize in a competition.

Or maybe we're talking about some other F.P. Hall entirely, which would not surprise me at all. So it goes.

Hank now the fun begins trying to ID F. P. Hall, no address listed.

Quick search showed an Attorney named F. P. Hall in Fayetteville, Arkansas circa 1913, Quien Sabe ?