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January 24, 2009
The "S" does stand for stainless.
When they first introduced stainless guns around 1983, the first ones were numbered in the conventional blued gun style, like this.
I assume that almost immediately someone noticed that this s/n style would be hard to track exactly how many stainless guns were produced. So the stainless guns got an "S/" ahead of the s/n.
This style remained for a while, until they deleted the slash & started using two letters ahead of the s/n. "S" still means stainless, and "D" means .357 Mag. These same letters were used on 714 & 715 models.
Toward the end of the Monson era & into the Palmer years, they changed again. This time the caliber is shown first, then an "S" or "B" (stainless or blued), then the s/n.
Monson...
And Palmer...
Hope that helps.
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