Nickel 4" M&P Pre-10 - Question regarding S/N locations?

[THREEDFLYER]

Hello all,

I recently acquired a very clean nickel finish 4" pre-10 that Roy tells me shipped June of 1957

There is NO serial number stamped on the cylinder or on the barrel.

It does have a letter "N" stamped on the barrel, where the S/N is typically stamped and also a letter "N" on the side of the grip frame which I assume means factory nicke.

Curious if the missing S/N in those locations might have been factory??

 

[22hipower]

Didn't the factory stop the soft fitting, if that's what it was called, about then? Probably some were assembled with numbered parts after that date but I think, by and large, the stamping of SNs on barrels and cylinders stopped before June of 1957.

Jeff
SWCA #1457

 

[JP@AK]

THREEDFLYER

By 1957, some serial number locations were being eliminated. The standard interpretation is that the elimination of the soft fitting process in 1957 was the proximate cause. However, there is evidence that said elimination was already under way. Here are two examples from my K-38 collection:

K-38 Masterpiece revolvers, four screw, no model number; neither has a serial number on the barrel flat nor on the cylinder:

K278720, shipped November, 1956
K285963, shipped January, 1957

Hence it is no surprise that your M&P that shipped in June, 1957, lacks the serial number on the barrel flat and on the cylinder.

One place you might check is on the underside of the extractor star. The serial number in that location often outlived the elimination of the number from the barrel flat and the rear face of the cylinder.

 

[handejector]

Early 4 Screw guns are numbered just like 5 screw guns in most models:
Butt, barrel, cylinder, yoke, and extractor.
Not far into the 4 screw area when hard fitting became universal, the barrel, cylinder, and yoke numbers became unnecessary and you don't pay people to do things you don't need to do.
The extractor number continues well into the 3 Screw guns.