Model 36 Box Question

[wiskerchew]

I picked up a box that has me baffled. It has stickers on each end for a Chiefs Special, 3" barrel, Sq Butt, Blued The SN on the bottom written is white grease pencil is 55576. Now from what I have seen this SN should be on a red box. After the red box came the starburst design up into the 148xxx numbers. This leads me to believe the SN written is not original but I must confess I've never seen this double line with gold colored corner hinges with original stickers.

Anybody have some comments?

Thanks,

 

[opoefc]

S&W is famous for this type of "what happened?" Guns shipped in odd boxes that shouldn't be, but there it is. Mostly because S&W didn't throw away any thing they might use some day and when guns & boxes were joined, the joiner grabbed what ever box happened to be that fit the gun, slapped on a label and put it in the vault. So that's the probability in this case, however as you state, someone could have added the grease penciled serial number in the past.