Jim,
My bad, but what exactly would you call this one? And should I make the correction in the database as it is listed as a pre-30.
Nobody's bad, it's a very common assumption. You'd have to make a lot of corrections in the model base.
The model name of your gun is IMO:
".32 Hand Ejector Transitional Model (Postwar) Improved " which is incorrectly listed in the SCSW 3rd edition pg 127 as Pre-Model 30 and described too generalized on pg 423. The book actually introduces confusion because on pg 153 pre-Models are described differently and inconsistently. Pre models should mean the same thing regardless of frame size.
Background: (believe me, this is more than you ever wanted to know!)
Now don't get me wrong, the SCSW is a fabulous resource but has some misgivings with regard to I frames and I propose needs updating.
The larger frame Smiths have long been studied and dissected. Pg 153 clearly documents the result of the evolutionary path of N frames in 4 categories (which incidentally, are miss-numbered):
1. Pre war models up to 1941
2. Transitional Models (post war) '45 to c. '50
3. Post war, Pre-model c. '50 to c. '57
4. Numbered models beginning c. '57
The study of post war I frames was clearly neglected. Once I studied my own collection of post war I frames, I realized that those 4 categories also apply to them by substituting c. 53 in place of c. '50 and eliminates or at least largely mitigates the confusion and ambiguity of the I frames.
For example, SCSW's use of "Improved I frame" terminology for both the Coil spring improvement and the Model of 1953 which was actually a "New" Model is a major source of confusion.
So if one accepts and applies the above logic and descriptions of the 4 categories on pg 153, only the 3 & 4 screw Model of 1953 .32 HEs are actual pre model 30s. It also applies to all the other I frames of the period and is further supported by and is consistent with the nomenclature used for the .22/32 post war Kit Guns and Targets on pages 118 and 119.
Now I fully recognize that my suppositions are not supported by official model names as printed on box end labels or in catalogs. However, it has long been recognized and accepted that collector terminology be substituted for the sake of clarity and in fact is used and intertwined with factory nomenclature in the SCSW and other resources, i.e., 'Triple-lock' for the '.44 'Military Hand Ejector New Century', etc, etc.