Antique Harrington & Richardson revolver's age/value

[Sam]

Sorry for the poor quality pictures.

A friend of mine was received a Harrington & Richardson .32 cal. revolver from his grand parent's estate. He sent me these cell phone pictures, as a non gun owner, he doesn't know much about taking quality pictures of guns. From the look of the pictures, the gun is in poor condition.

Is there anyway to look up the serial number of the gun to find out its age? and then therefore its value?

Thanks a bunch, I know there isn't much info to work with.

[Lefty223]

My bro collects & shoots "top break" pistols (low powered reloads only) and has never paid > $80 to $100 for one, andeven then must be in perfect mechanical condition.

[anachronism]

I tried collecting H&R revolvers years ago. They were easy to locate, cheap to buy, but never seemed to appreciate in value. There are a few treasures out there, but this one appears to be a plain vanilla 32 top break, likely a 32 S&W short. Many of these revolvers were shot loose by people using 32 ACP ammo, which will chamber and fire in these guns, but the chamber pressures are simply too high for the gun to survive much use. Add to that H&Rs use of flat springs everywhere, and reliability is a real issue when you're talking about a hundred year or so old gun. I sold my H&Rs off, and was glad to be rid of them. All except for one. My Moms .22, and it has a home in my family as long as it exists.

[Kain]

H&R revolvers don't bring any sort of value. Seriously, they don't. I see them show up in local auctions here regularly and if they get up to $125 it is because someone is trying to piss in someone else's cheerios or it is a .22lr revolver from the later years and in good condition and someone wants it because they don't want to buy a ruger or something, otherwise they are pretty much novelties. Which, by and by, if you are looking for a cheap novelty there are worse things out there. More often then not, though, in fair or worse condition $40-60 is the market price.

Of course if you are just bored you can always call up H&K and tell them you have one of their revolvers and want information on it. I have seen people do that who couldn't tell if that R was a K or an R, it is worth a few laughs.

[Sam]

Thanks, got the info needed.