Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:

My Dad has acquired a S&W revolver mod. 10-5 with 5 inch tapered barrel with nickel finish. Serial number is C781xxx a while ago. The backstrap is marked with "Detroit Police" and numbers "12629", so it is obviously a former police duty revolver. This specimen hardly seems to have seen much service as condition was virtually new at the time he got it. That was surprising, especially over here, in central Europe.

I have used the "Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson - 3rd Edition" for reference. There was some information about this model variation on the low left of page 175, but I could not find an answer to my questions:

Q-1: When did the DPD adopt this model variation?

Q-2: Did DPD issue this model to all member of its service or to a specific branch?

Q-3: Did the DPD buy and issue these revolvers to its members or was it individually bought by officers, maybe from a list of approved revolver models?

Q-4: Was there any particular "tactical concept" behind adoption of such a shiny .38 duty revolver? I can imagine that a nickel plated revolver might draw much more attention in low light conditions than a blue steel gun and that possibly helped reduce having to shoot as criminals would be more likely to give up when they saw the gun pointed at them by a DPD officer. Or, maybe this special version of model 10 helped officers to identify their brother officers much more handily when they were called to a crime in progress a.k.a. "This man holds a shiny model 10 with an (unusual) 5 inch barrel like mine, so quite like he is one of us".

Q-5: For how long did the DPD issue this model variation?

Q-6: Was this model variation "grandfathered" for duty use by older officers when the DPD went to another duty gun?

Please forgive this naïve questions, but information on these venerable old police duty guns is hard to come by over here. We have to rely on information by American enthusiasts.

Perhaps there are a few retired DPD officers among forum members who had the insight when this particular model 10 was issued.

Thanks a lot for your kind response.

karamojo