"Crown Over 30" Mark on Toe of S&W .455 "2nd Model"

[jmoore]

This little marking has me stumped after a little research, so here it is for your identification.






Another view

It isn't on any Smiths handy that have other British markings, and the revolver has no other "non-S&W" marks.

The books checked so far have no similar markings from any country included within, and a Google search revealed a couple of other Smiths in about the same S/N range (roughly 1000 from the end of the run of .455s) with the same marking. No other useful info from that search as to it's origins.

Your insights would be appreciated, but poorly compensated.

Information

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[barbarossa]

I would be inclined to think this would be a good candidate for a Smith & Wesson factory letter. As you say no other Brit markings so it never made it to the U.K. to receive all the acceptance proofs and government property markings. I'd lean toward this theory: British inspector basically give the gun the once over upon arrival in England, slaps his inspection stamp on the revolver, then packs it back up in the shipping box for shipment along with a number of similar revolvers for issuance to another Commonwealth member nation. If Inspector 30 only handled a small number of these revolvers at the end of the Hand Ejector MkII production run for the British contracts this would account for the scarcity of the marking on extant examples. Like Canada, other Commonwealth countries may very well have received shipments of these revolvers that were paid for by the nation in question and not by the British government, so beyond a pro forma inspection for quality by Inspector 30, the revolvers might never had any other marking applied by the final end user. In essence, the revolver was NEVER in British inventory, only inspected then shipped to another user.

The S&W Hand Ejector revolvers also figured prominently in the Irish Civil War. Perhaps it's a revolver sent over to issue to the RIC or the Black 'n Tans. After all these were not strictly British military units in the classical sense and the revolvers would have not been proofed except such a marking to denote the weapon had indeed passed through the hands of HM Government at some stage of play before issue. Kinda a sanitized weapon, if you will, of uncertain pedigree or provenance.

Just a thought.....

[jmoore]

I wonder if there's a volume discount for factory letters? I two or three oddballs that need some research, but they aren't military.

[killer kanuck]

I just received my 3rd S&W 2nd Model Hand Ejector today, expecting to see a number of British and/or Canadian proofmarks like on my other 2, but the only non-S&W marking is the same crown over 30.


The serial number places it within the last 100 of the military run.

[jmoore]

Thanks for the additional photos and info! Maybe one day we will figure out what makes these late production revolvers different as regards their service life.

[green]

The CROWN/30 mark is a Canadian inspector mark. S&W had a contract for 14500 with Canada. Crown/numeral mark appears on Ross rifles.