Model 1955 serial # check and value

[Dave44816]

I have a pristine model 1955 that i am curious as to the history of the piece.
model #734XXX

also some of the original felt has been damaged in the display box. Is there replacement felt available?

Any thoughts on its value
6" barrel

Ant help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Muley Gil]

Welcome to the Forum.

Presuming that your serial number has an "N" prefix, it would have shipped from the factory around 1980.

IMHO, value would be around $800 for like new condition.

 

[Dave44816]

Yes it does, thank you
Just sitting in the safe looking pretty.
May be looking for sale/trade

 

[Art Doc]

Why do 90% of people ignore the letters in the serials? My refrigerator, my computer, and my car all have both letters and numbers in the serials and I suspect it's not uncommon for most things to have both letters and numbers in the serial so we should be accustomed to seeing it. Why are the letters in firearm serials routinely disregarded?

 

[Art Doc]

BTW- My 25-2 is N684202 (note that I am not overly paranoid) and it still has the 6.5" barrel supposedly discontinued in 1978 so if the the gun above was measured correctly the switch was made between mine and his.

 

[AKtinman]

also some of the original felt has been damaged in the display box. Is there replacement felt available?

Welcome to the Forum!

There is a fellow here on the Forum who relines cases. I don't remember his name, but you could do a search for him.

Sounds like a nice gun you have.

 

[Jebus35745]

Joe Cebul does the cases. Larry

 

[Dave44816]

thank you for the replies
It was measured correctly, I did check to see if it was a 6.5" barrel.
And my son wrote the serial # down for me, I did not even look at it prior to posting yesterday.
When you ask someone for a serial number, he did not include the letter prefix because it was a letter.

I will look up Joe

 

[JSR III]

One thing to note when trying to establish cut off dates for this or that is that S&W was in the business to make money. If a particular model was catalogued with a certain barrel length and then at some moment in time is was catalogued with a different barrel length, that does not mean that a gun shipped at a later date could not come with the former length.

If a customer wanted that configuration, after the listed date for a change, the company would usually comply if there was money to be made and they had the barrel on hand.

Add to that the way that S&W manufactured their guns, stored these production runs in the vault and subsequently shipped them, all kinds of things can happen when trying to use serial numbers or shipping dates to come up with definitive time frames.

My humble opinion on the subject.