Bought my first model 29 in 1967 for $125 used when new ones were $165 in the presentation box. Took me 3 months to pay it off working for uncle Sam & a part time job in Texas. Since that time I've owned & traded lots of them but a 5" gun has always eluded me. In the mid 70's I had a 4 digit Ruger #1 in 45/70 & Jed Wilson, sheriff of Lemhi county, Idaho wanted it really bad & said he might be willing to trade his factory 5" S&W 44 for it.
I drove to Salmon a few days later, spent part of the day with Elmer Keith out in his trophy room & bought another book then drove over to Jed's place & he opened a huge foot locker/safe he had in a back bedroom & pulled out an ivory stocked 5" model 29. These were special order guns, I think from some hardware store in Ohio, might be wrong on the store.
Anyway at that time ivory wasn't bringing the crazy prices it is now but still it added quite a bit to the gun & after quite a bit of back & forth Jed decided he might be better off keeping the 44. I wanted it really bad but he made the right choice. About a year later that gun & many others were stolen & his son, who was a Salmon cop got in a shoot out with the bad guy, maybe a story for a later time. Even Elmer got involved a bit.
Dick
Dick, please tell the rest of the story about the shootout with the bad guy.
