According to the Standard Catalog Of Smith & Wesson's book, this Prewar Model .38/44 Heavy Duty revolver was manufactured in circa 1933. SPECS: 5" barrel, diamond checkered walnut Magna-Style grips with S&W medallion inlays, round blade front sight, fixed square notch rear sight, shrouded extractor rod, casehardened grooved trigger, casehardened checkered spur hammer and 6-shot swing-out cylinder (numbers matching cylinder). This revolver comes with a Safari Land #58 black tooled leather holster & 3-cylinder belt pouch with a basket weave design. CONDITION: This revolver is in good condition with some various light bluing wear, has a nice sharp/ clean bore and appears to be in good working order. HISTORY: Introduced in April, 1930, the .38/44 Heavy Duty is a .38 S&W Special double-action revolver built on Smith & Wesson large square butt "N" frame. These large frames were previously used on Smith & Wesson's .44 revolvers which is where the name ".38/44 Heavy Duty" originated. These were one of the most popular large frame revolvers during the 1930s. By the time the model was discontinued in 1941, S&W had sold 11,111 revolvers. The .38/44 is serial numbered in the N series and is found scattered between serial numbers 35,037 and 62,350. When commercial production resumed at the end of World War II, the .38/44 Heavy Duty was reintroduced with the first revolvers completed on June 18, 1946. The postwar revolvers incorporated the new rebound slide hammer block and had S-prefix serial numbers to signify this design change. The first postwar revolver was serial number S62,940. The postwar design remained unchanged until 1948. At approximately serial number S72,300 S&W incorporated new short hammer throw lockwork into the N-frame revolvers. The .38/44 Heavy Duty remained a very popular revolver, and by June 1952, postwar sales reached 1,214 units. However, the .38/44's days were numbered. With the rising popularity of the .357 Magnum, sales of the .38/44 declined. In 1957, Smith & Wesson began to assign model numbers to its various revolvers, and the .38/44 Heavy Duty became the Model 20. Between 1957 and 1962 several design changes were incorporated that can be recognized by the appearance of either a -1 or a -2 after the model number. These changes included changing to a left hand thread for the extractor rod (-1), and the incorporation of a cylinder stop allowing for the elimination of the screw in front of the trigger guard (-2). Despite the improvements the .38/44's days were numbered. In 1966, after a post war production run of some 20,604 revolvers, production of the .38/44 ceased, with the last group of these revolvers having serial numbers S256,107 through S256,133. FREE SHIPPING & NO PROCESSING FEES.