Beautiful guns, Skidder! That 66 is, in my opinion, the most beautiful of the guns listed in the poll...that and the blue 13s of the same era. As much as I loved the Security-Six, when people who weren't really into guns asked me for my recommendation for a house gun, I always pointed them to a Model 13. In those days the gun was gorgeous, had a beautiful blue finish, a decent trigger and outstanding pointing characteristics (not to mention that it took both .38s and .357s). That said, my friend, who was a firearms instructor, had a Model 66 that he kept a short rein on. He had a 4-inch, a 2.5-inch and a stainless Security-Six. The one he let his private customers use, though, was a 2.5-inch 19. He taught my mom how to shoot it when she visited me in western Kentucky.
They sure don't make 'em like they used to. Sadly, at the time, most shooters just took these fine guns for granted. They said, ironically, that those guns weren't up to the standards of guns made a decade or so before. Now that we are awash in plastic guns and steel and rubber paperweights, that talk will probably soon die out.