My sense is that even a beat-up 1917 is about a $450-500 gun these days. Add a couple hundred for a decent shooter. If you want the gun to look good too, you are at a thousand or above. These notions are based on prices for guns I see on dealers' shelves or on the major internet trading sites.

Brazilians are still a little less -- maybe 20% lower?

I don't know what the auction scene is like these days. A year ago I saw both Colt and S&W 1917s getting the hammer from houses like Greg Martin at half of dealer's prices. Maybe that was a fluke, but maybe it was an indicator of realistic value as well. Good luck with your hunt.

 

The .45 acp S&W I picked up last year at a local show is a great shooter and identical in every respect to the 1917 S&W except for the Brazialian crest on the right side, which doesn't hurt the shooting qualities at all. In fact, it's in pretty good shape overall and apparently carried much more than shot. Best of all, I picked it up for only $300, MUCH less that a standard S&W 1917 with the G.I. stampings. I invested in a wonderful 2 page letter from Mr. Jinks who provided very interesting information regarding the gun. If you just want a "shooter" and can live with the Brazilian crest on the side plate, I think it's the better way to go if you can find one. Mine has the U.S. eagle head and inspection stamps on the frame inside the crane. The frame was left over from WWI, and the barrel and cylinder were new commercial parts S&W used when making the gun up for the second shipment to Brazil military just after WWII. All the serial numbers, frame, barrel, cylinder, crane, etc. match. It's a great "shooter".

 

I too recently acquired a Brazilian, off an action site. Wearing a fresh parkerization and post-war grips, it took just over $400 to get it to the house. Another "economy option" might be to look at a .455 No.2 that had its cylinder altered to accomodate .45 ACP and half-moon clips. The British contract revolver will have a slightly longer barrel and will likely perform better if handloaded with .454 bullets.

Be prepared to be patient and shop, some folks have some inflated notions with respect to the older N frames.

 

$450-550 will get you a good solid shooter in my area of the pasture. They come up in gun and estate auctions fairly regularly for that price but you can count on a re-blued or nonexistent finish and perhaps nonstandard grips. But a good shooter nonetheless. At gun shows they are always much higher but I've never counter offered. Seen some pretty nasty examples at shows with a $400 tag. My feeling is that they should pay me the $400 to take it off their hands. $1000- 1500 for nice collector pieces.
Come to think of it, that illustrates one of the aspects that I like best about S&W collecting. You have to spend a lot of moola to buy something that looks nice but you don't dare take out much. BUT, you only have to spend a fraction of that to get a gal that you can have fun with shooting all day and not have to worry about wearing her out none...and they're both built the same!
John