Serial Numbers For over 150 years Smith & Wesson Pistols and revolver serial numbers started with 1 and ended with the last serial for that model. Thus there were a lot of duplicate Serial numbers although if you could identify the model it was not that hard to tell the difference from serial #1234 Model 1 first, #1234 Model 1/2 first, #1234 Model 2, etc. but as the models increased there was more of a chance of confusion, When the 38 Special Military & Police reached 999999 they added a letter V for Victory then VS (for new safety) after the Victory was won in 1945 they dropped the V and finished the second million with just S, in 1948 the third million started with C and the 4th Million with D in 1968. The 1968 Gun law required gun manufacturers to use a Unique Serial number for each gun they made, thus there were a different letters added to series of serial numbers B, J, K, L, M, N, R, but when 99999 or 999999 was reached the letter was in the series of numbers ie 1K1234,and that series went to 311K273 before the 3 letter 4 digit Serial numbers started in the 1980s. The 3 letter and 4 number serial allows over 17 million unique serial numbers and then a simple change could add another 17+ million Serial numbers. The problem is that the 3 letter 4 number Serials do not always make sense to us who would think that A always is before B. These serials are assigned to guns in blocks and only the factory knows what serial number block was used when and on what guns.
