{"id":8680,"date":"2025-01-29T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/?p=8680"},"modified":"2025-01-13T14:49:44","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T19:49:44","slug":"the-new-standard-catalog-of-smith-wesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/the-new-standard-catalog-of-smith-wesson\/","title":{"rendered":"THE NEW STANDARD CATALOG OF SMITH & WESSON"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From Gun Digest Books comes \u201cThe Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson<\/a>,\u201d fifth edition. Jim Supica and Richard Nahas, two pre-eminent authorities on these guns, are the authors.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me call your attention to a couple of things in the photo accompanying these comments. You\u2019ll note that on the hard cover of this edition it says \u201c500+ New Listings.\u201d Take a moment to consider how much research is required to uncover that many new learning points regarding the history of iconic American art and workmanship, rendered in steel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other point in the picture is one of the uncatalogued Smith & Wessons you\u2019ll find in the book but wouldn\u2019t have found in gun magazines or catalogues: my Model 66 stainless Smith  & Wesson .357 Magnum with the extremely uncommon barrel length of three inches. This <\/em>exhaustively researched tome tells you when it was introduced, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those many collective decades of research are worth something. This book is \u201ccoffee table quality,\u201d with exquisite \u201cgun porn\u201d photography of rare and beautifully engraved guns all over its nearly six hundred glossy pages.  That doesn\u2019t come cheap. Retail on this book is $74.99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, hear me out. You\u2019re paying for the knowledge that went into it more than for the pretty pictures. (And, if cost is an object, you can get the electronic version for about thirty bucks, the price of a hardcover novel in a bookstore.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a collector of twentieth century Colts and Smith & Wessons.  The first advice you\u2019re likely to hear from a veteran collector if you\u2019re just getting into the hobby is, \u201cBuy the books before you buy the guns!\u201d There are a lot of fake and forged collectibles out there, and books like this tell you how to watch out for them and not get suckered. Knowing the details has earned me tens of thousands of dollars in value when I recognized something worth far more than the seller\u2019s asking price, and has probably saved me as much in allowing me to recognize over-priced crap and resort to my shoe leather instead of my wallet and walk away from a bad deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Smith & Wesson Collectors Association,<\/a> SWCA consists of an elite group of connoisseurs who know their stuff, and those SWCA people are raving about this book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, as I\u2019ve said earlier here, you can always ask your local library to buy it for you or see if it\u2019s available on inter-library loan. But, really, if you\u2019re into these fine firearms, you\u2019re going to want your own copy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Gun Digest Books comes \u201cThe Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson,\u201d fifth edition. Jim Supica and Richard Nahas, two pre-eminent authorities on these guns, are the authors.\u00a0 Let me call your attention to a couple of things in the photo accompanying these comments. You\u2019ll note that on the hard cover of this edition it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8682,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8680\/revisions\/8682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/MassadAyoob\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}