A rare example of the earliest model of Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector with a swing out cylinder. The Military & Police Model of 1899, also known as the Military & Police 1^st Model, was built as a round butt K frame with 4 screws. In fact, the M&P 1^st Model can be considered a pre-5 screw 4-screw revolver as the 5^th screw was not added to the basic Hand Ejector design until about 1905. Barrels of 4", 5", 6”, and 6.5" were common. Serial numbers ran from 1 to 20975 with a total of 20,795 produced circa 1899-1902. This example has the 6.5" barrel with the unusual feature of lacking a locking lug in front of the ejector rod. The Model has 1899 also lacks a should at the rear of the barrel as found on later models of the Hand Ejector series. Cylinder length is roughly 1.56". The Model 1899 is also famous for introducing the famous 38 Special cartridge to the world. The 38 Special has been by military, police, and civilians around the world for well over one hundred years and remains very popular to this day. The revolver is in fair to good condition. The bore exhibits light pitting but is in a very shootable condition and should remain fairly accurate for such an old pistol. The cylinder locks up in the typical S&W fashion and timing is correct. The external surface of the gun has very little bluing remaining and is covered in an assortment of scratches. Given the pitting present on the gun, it likely became rusted at some point and the owner used a steel brush to clean it, not realizing that a bronze brush would have been much better, and would not have left scratches on the gun. Even so, the wear is not unusual for an early Smith & Wesson revolver. Surprisingly, the grips are in fairly good shape with only light chipping. There are no cracks. This revolver would make an interesting addition to any S&W fan’s collection.