Birth year guns...

[Truckman]

Among S&W collectors it's a thing to find a birth year gun, one that shipped from the factory the same year as its current curator...I bought one last year which I already knew was a birth year gun because it came with the SWHF letter stating the shipping date, March 1947...Also last year I bought a S&W M&P which I managed to misidentify...But in doing some shopping last night I ran across an original box for an early postwar M&P which got me to thinking...The box is labeled for an M&P with a 5" barrel...So I looked up mine and I had it recorded as a 6"...But in looking at the serial number, I realized I had misidentified the production year, recording it as '53-'54...

So I dug the gun out of my safe, and sure enough the barrel is 5" and not 6" long...I got my book out and reading the S/N correctly, the gun was produced in '46-'48, a very early postwar gun...So today I asked the S&W historian, Roy Jinks when this gun shipped...He came back from his records and confirmed that it too shipped in March 1947 just like my other one...I, of course, shipped from my factory two months earlier giving me a slight head start on these two fine revolvers, but both are verified as birth year guns for me...

So yes, I ordered the box that got me to thinking, and when it arrives both my birth year guns will have the correct S&W boxes...The M&P is absolutely pristine, and possibly hasn't been shot since leaving the factory, and I will order the SWHF letter for it...The other one is a K22 Masterpiece with a 3 digit serial number making it only the 782nd K-frame target revolver to be produced after the war...The M&P is pictured below at the top left of the first picture...I bought it in an 8 gun local negotiation...The K22 is also at top left in the middle pic, bought in a three gun deal...The box for the K22 is second from the top in the last pic...Life is good......Ben