I won the following item in an auction last weekend. It is a .38 Regulation Police, S/N 5693, which I think makes it a first year. It has some muzzle wear and a turn line. It does not appear to have been fired hardly at all. It came with the original box.

I paid $425 after commissions, which I think was somewhere between a reasonable and good price.

It has the faint little marks in the butt, where it look like it was used to tack up "Wanted" posters - at least that's what I choose to believe.

Here are pictures before cleaning.



[IMG]http://i1091.photobucket.com/albums/i390/jmace57/RP-1-5_zpszv3r***z.jpg[/IMG]

Nice find. With the box, I'd say a pretty good deal.

Especially with the original box, that is an excellent price. At least a couple of years ago when I was looking to acquire one, I would have jumped on that.

I'm no expert on these, but as I indicated in the other thread, RP 38's shipped in 1917 are generally below 5000, and then it starts up again in the 8000's in late 1919. Numbers like yours in-between are scarce. I can recall only one specimen presented here a while ago, in the 6000's I believe.

A few folks here keep closer tabs on these than I do and can possibly support or refute this with data points.

But if you feel a hankering to letter this gun, I don't think anyone would mind .

Saw a .38 RP from the immediate post-WWI period at the gun show yesterday. Seller was asking $250, but it was not in nearly as good condition as shown in the pictures above. Possible blood damage and pitting to the barrel finish.

I did a ship-date request and Don responded back already: March, 1918.

Reg. Police # 751 shipped May 1917. Does # 5693 have the "pat. June 6, 1917" date stamped on the bottom of the right grip? Ed.

Jim:
Very interesting result of your query.

If you have not already, you should definitely peruse this old thread for more background:

Early 38 Regulation Police

I've taken the liberty to copy the following quote from one of our most knowledgable members, DCWilson, from 2013, from that thread, which explains why you have something a bit unusual:

"...I'm just interpreting the recorded serial numbers, though I guess I could be overinterpreting them as I did 3-4 years ago before I wised up the reality of S&W serial number chaos. More data would firm up my estimate, but it's still true that of 11 known .38 RPs numbered below 5000, eight of them are confirmed to have shipped in 1917 and the three others are undated. (One of the three is guess-dated to 1917, but I don't count that as a solid ship date.) One in the 42xx range shipped in November of that year. There are no 1918 .38 RPs known to me, but known guns shipped in 1919 are all numbered above 8000."

At the end, another user posted about the only other 1918-shipped specimen I know about, #6592 from April 1918. But he apparently never lettered it. So we don't know whether the factory still shipped civilian models to regular commercial customers while in the middle of war production. If you're motivated enough, maybe we can find out through yours .

Ed - yes, it does.

A very nice find ! We are away from our home due to Hurricane Matthew but my dear wife's Regulation Police # 60 lettered in 1917 but the exact date is at home. In any case Lee had an excellent thread on early Regulation Police guns. Hope you can easily find it. Again sorry I don't have the info with me. Enjoy your new find.

Absalom, thanks for making me realize that something I said a while back needed updating. I went back and added to my post in that other thread to take note of the known 1918 guns.

Florange, the thread you mentioned is the one that Absalom linked to in his post no. 7 above. Congratulations to your wife on the two-digit RP; if my arithmetic is correct there can't be more than about 90 of those.

And Holy Cow! That was some weather you Floridians had a couple of days ago. I hope everything is OK when you get back home.

__________________
David Wilson