Didn't Mr. Supica say he would NEVER AGAIN undertake a newer addition?
He did say that. But then a couple of months ago he came back and said he lied. He and Rick are talking about a 4th. Could be he just wanted to be rid of us hecklers. Once word got out he was even opening the door by a crack, we'd harass him to death.
Many of us know the history of Smith and Wesson by virtue of some of the books written on the subject. Compared to Colt's and Winchester, S&W is very poorly represented in the printed world. Jim and Rick changed all that with their first edition. It was a watershed event for us. I don't know if they ever intended it to become so defining, but it sure has. Then they published the 2nd edition, which was actually a correction edition becasue a bunch of jerks (guilty) had pointed out some little problems. Suddenly our world had become much better.
Then in the history of things, like man discovering fire, the wheel, and strip bars, a guy named Mike Packwood took over the ownership of a tiny forum for S&W Owners. Not really his area of interest, but it flourished. It was called the Smith-Wessonforum. Suddenly collectors were not just meeting out behind the barn to discuss their favorite subject, we had Al Gore's internet. It allowed all of us to talk and show our guns. And opened a new path to Jim and Rick. Instead of working, they had to answer dozens to hundreds of emails. Maybe we're the cause of them swearing off gun books.
But now after 5 years to catch their breath, and spending the great riches like drunken sailors, some things have happened. Para got tired of all of our bickering and dumped the forum off to Lee. It probably nearly bankrupted him. Now Lee can enjoy the drain.
But we've pretty much also taken over the subject. Lee has managed to somehow consolidate the Joe Miller forum, the breakaway SWCA group, and the unwashed masses we call home here. S&W collecting has actually become an honorable pastime. It hasn't really relegated the printed works into obscurity, mostly the lack of a current update has to some extent done that. Notice I still have all 3 of mine, and I can make space on the nearest bookshelf (by tossing a Colt book or two) for the long awaited 4th edition.
Once Jim comes back on here and says "its a go", I would think many of us will start making their lives miserable again. It'll be fun, and with a backlog of things we've learned, I would hope the next try will greatly expand the generally available knowledge on the field. Last cycle many of us lobbied as much as we could for pictures (kind of like the folks here trying to demand photos of everything). It resulted in the coffee table edition we received. Supica once nicknamed it the "Dick Burg coffee table edition". Many of us tried to submit good photos, and I would hope this next cycle we do even better.
This time we have even more sparkling examples of the guns and the oddities. Many of us know so much more now than we did in the past, and our collections have grown much larger and better. Notice we may live in a democracy, but the authors won't allow us to vote on having a 4th edition or not. Its probably because they don't need to, they know the answer. And we represent a captive market for the first few thousand books. They'll sell themselves.
