Your AA prefix L frames are unique In that they will have a large right side trademark.
Some ocd collectors like me will place a a slight premium on this feature
OH man, I would not deem this OCD or anything like that. Fact is, these are a very scarce variation on a massively huge and popular model. I believe the premium would be higher and REAL if more folks knew about them.
For the OP or anyone curious, these early L-frame guns coincided with S&W's decision to move the large, classic S&W emblem off the side plate on the right side to the left side under the cylinder release. On 98% of the L-frames (and counting) this smaller emblem on the left side is simply how S&W moved forward for all revolvers.
The reason was simple -- they wanted to open up the large amount of real estate and they offered to custom engrave any LE organization or agency logo in this area if the buyer of the run was willing to pay for it. And it was also used for commemorative guns and for special award pieces for competitions, anything that a buyer was willing to pay for.
It's also interesting to note that in my travels... any/every early L-frame that still has the old school emblem on the side plate was also issued in the last of the old style two-piece blue box with the metal reinforced corners. The then-new style one piece flip-top box debuted here and all of the rest of the L-frames (and all other guns...) eventually found their way in to these one-piece boxes.
So your AA-prefix L-frames probably came in the old style two-piece box if they are wearing the large emblem on the side plate.
Do you have the original boxes?
