Oyeboten:
Thanks for posting that.
I've annotated my SCSW for future reference.
Re the Brazilian gun: If you go back to pages 60 & 61 of this thread you will find lots of info, speculation and pics re Dogngun's & DrakeGmbh's respective 1917s.
S&W assembled guns in the post WWII era using spare parts & frames bought back from the US Army, so I wouldn't be surprised if they used up any WWI era spares for the original shipment to Brazil in 1938 as well.
In 1937/38 the Great Depression was still on and according to Old Fuff S&W were making and stockpiling frames & parts to keep their workforce afloat.
It seems logical that they would reach for the parts bin and shake it empty when they finally got a decent order, especially as the US army already had a stockpile of 1917 parts and were not likely to buy more in the future.
The SCSW notes that most of the 1938 shipment was in the serial range 181983 to 207043, with the lowest known Brazilian serial number being 16974x. So your frame number being somewhat higher than 180160 should place it in that group.
The Eagle stamp should have an Sx stamp next to it if passed by a U.S. army sub inspector, the lack of the Sx stamp suggests that S&W stamped the eagles but never turned the parts over to the sub-inspector, which would explain the parts still being in stock at S&W after the war.
The US issue serial range ended at 169959 in September 1919. Serial number 180455 shipped as a commercial model on February 7 1929. Looking at the numbers, fewer than 1000 1917s sold per year from 1919 to 1937, so its possible that the gun was a bitzer from the factory in an attempt to clear dead stock. There is however the possibility that it was an arsenal repair in Brazil or assembled from parts by the milsurp importer who brought them back into the USA.
I guess my gut feeling is you should pass on it if the timing isn't perfect, there are plenty of 1917s out there and although its provenance is interesting its not documentable unless you pay for a factory letter that may not note the bitzer configuration and probably won't add value.
If it was a post WWII commercial rework like Drake's I would be all over it myself.