Please Help Identify This Revolver

[Harold A]

A friend of mine just brought in pictures of an old revolver. She would like some help identifying it and an approximate value.

The markings on the side are: Smith & Wesson .455

Smith & Wesson, Springfield Mass USA
Patented Oct 8 1901 Dec 17 1901 Feb 5 1906

There is a criss crossed flag in front of the cylinder





Any help would be appreciated

 

[P95Carry]

In no way am I the local S&W guru, far from it. I will hope the experts will come along later.

I do tho looking at this find it bears a great similarity to what I had some years ago - a Smith 'Model 1917'' ...... that was in .455 Webley ... and was the same basic profile. This one perhaps is an earlier version of the same. The non-std grips make it look a tad different too, tho when I remember the std grips on my 1917 .... these are probably a huge improvement!

Anyways - look forward to further informed erudition.

 

[Jim Watson]

The illustrated revolver is a Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector Second Model in .455 Webley calibre, as sold to England and Canada in World War I.

The grips are modern replacement rubber Pachmayrs.
A lot of these guns were altered to take .45 Auto Rim (or ACP in clips) or .45 Long Colt. I can't tell from the picture if that change was made in her gun.

Dollar value is somewhere in the hundreds. More if it is in the original chambering and if she can round up the original grips, less if caliber converted without original grips.

There is a nice looking one on GunsAmerica for $695, one in worn condition for $400, and one clean but rechambered and regripped for $495.
http://www.gunsamerica.com/guns/976437438.htm
http://www.gunsamerica.com/guns/976297893.htm
http://www.gunsamerica.com/guns/976484904.htm

Show it to the real experts over on
www.smith-wessonforum.com

 

[MrMurphy]

What he said. The S&Ws were solid major size revolvers, and the Brits didn't have enough Webleys. So they got .455 chambered S&Ws, also, some Webley clones from Spain (The "Ruby" revolvers made by various companies.. France used them as well as Ruby Autos for the same reason).

The Hand Ejector, chambered in .45 ACP with moon clips fulfilled this role when our Army needed a whole heck of a lot of pistols (they tried to get one per man for trench fighting) deploying to France in WW1. So S&W and Colt were both cranking out .45 Colt, .455 Webley and .45 ACP wheelguns pretty much nonstop from 1914 till 1918 or 1920.

 

[Jim K]

The crossed flags are the British military proof mark. There should be a broad arrow military property mark also and probably a letter and number indicating the inspector who accepted the gun into British service.

Jim