Nice gun, but it's like a bad penny. It keeps turning up! Here's the factory letter info. for it: Serial # 48520, Reg. No. 1234, shipped July 8, 1936 ( note: factory letter says 1946, but it's a typo by Roy) to Wm. Hogee Co., Los Angeles, CA. 6.5 in. barrel, McGivern Gold bead front sight, blue finish, checkered walnt Magna grips. Sighted at 100 yds (!) with .357 Magnum ammo, with dead center hold. ( I'd like to see the target that sighted this gun at 100 yds ! ) This gun was discovered in a Tucson, AZ. gun shop about 4 yrs ago. Engraving was done thru the original bluing, by Benno Heune, of Bridgeport, CA. probably in the 1960s. Benno was an aquaintanece of mine in the 60s & 70s as he ran a sporting goods store in Bridgeport where my deer hunting parties stocked up on hunting items each fall during our annual northern Calif. deer & elk hunts. I knew him as "Ben," the sporting goods dealer, and didn't know his last name, unti later, or that he engraved guns also. Heune means "Elk" in German and he signed his work with a small Elk symbol occasionaly. Now it gets interesting - Here's the Rest of the Story - About a year after the gun was found and taken to the East Coast by a collector, I bought a mint pair of Magna grips at a Tucson gun show. They had number 48520 on them. I knew they had to be from a Reg. Mag. or a HD, circa 1936, so I called Roy Jinks and asked him what model S&W was serial 48520. He told me that it was Reg. Mag. No. 1234 and that he had just lettered the gun for a collector. Roy gave me the collector's address and I immediately contacted him and offered him the original grips for his gun - at my cost, which was only a couple of bucks,- He did not want them! His reason being was that the gun now had a pair of fancy carved walnut grips of a design that matched the gun's engraving and the original grips would not look right on the gun. OK. When the gun was found in Tucson, it had a set of stag grips on it. The gun acquired the fancy carved grips later. Lee got involved with this gun later on and it did not have the fancy carved grips when he saw it. I offered the original grips for sale to a member of the S&WCA and he bought them. So, everybody has a little piece of the puzzle on this one! Ed.
