Chris, Some years ago, member Pete Roberts put out a small booklet called "Some of The Buckles of Smith & Wesson" It is long out of print
. It covered most of the official factory authorized buckles offered from approx. 1970 to 2000. It is only a drop in the bucket. Another member and I have been working on a 2nd edit. of Pete's book for sometime and about the time we think we might have a handle on the project , some unknown buckles show up. I have buckles going back to pre WW2 and just found out that the Bradshaw Exchange will offer a whole new series of very nice S&W Buckles starting this month. There are three catagories of buckles (1) Factory made examples (2) factory authorized examples made outside the factory, and (3) all other buckles . There's no complete list, or anything really close to a complete list, except what is in the data Larry & I have accumulated perhaps, and it's a longway from being in print. I would say there's probably over a 100 buckles in the first two catagories, and 2 or 3 times that many in catagory 3. Factory records are almost nonexistant, especially on the licensed buckles made by vendors. The upside of this is that collecting them can be fun and very inexpensive in relation to S&W firearm costs. Many can be found on Ebay, NIB, for $35 or less. Rarer ones, or even ones made with silver or gold can be found for under a few hundred dollars. One thing the factory has never made is a buckle for the S&W Collectors Assoc. (Marlin collectors have them, Colt collectors have them ,etc.) I think we should petition the factory to make them and the profits could go to the cost of running this Forum. I'm sure we could underwrite an initial run of 500 buckles, sell them for $20 ea. and gross $10,000. Lee, I give you permission to bring this before the BOD at the Orlando meeting, but do you homework first and have a good cost benefit analysis ready! No charge for the idea, Lee! Ed.
