Lou Horton Heritage series
I purchased this same model. As I recall, the MSRP was around $950 and I paid around $700-750. IMHO, these were the last of the great, beautiful Smiths -- non-lock, non-MIM and with the latest engineering upgrades. Unfortunately, they did not sell well because of the controversy created by the infamous Ed Schultz Agreement with HUD. After a time, the Heritage line languished, and Lew Horton had a hard time selling them, so they finally sold off their inventory to other distributors at dramatically lower prices, as much as 50% less than their original price. Wish I could've collected the whole series!
The Heritage frames have the integral cylinder stop built-in (a very late 90's feature), a frame mounted firing pin (started around 90/91), non-MIM parts, and round butt grips (which had not been a standard feature on N-frames for very long).
SmithNut reported the following info back in 2004 regarding the Heritage series M29s:
"Here are some notes I took while talking to S&W Customer Service and a Lew Horton rep when they [Heritage models] were first coming available. No guarantee that these numbers were locked in concrete, or if there were subsequent re-issues... It includes the Product code, the quantity, the model number, caliber, description and when they would start shipping."
170213 Horton M29 .44 Mag. 7 " tapered bbl blue Nov. 13
170214 Horton M29 .44 Mag. 7" tapered bbl color case Nov. 16
170215 Horton M29 .44 Mag 7" tapered bbl Nickel Nov. 21
"The total quantity of the Model 29 series is 350 units no break down was supplied of how many of each was listed."
