Vintage Catalogs: Smith & Wesson

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coop359

Member
Apr 16, 2012
495
USA Tennessee
Cool. I did not know you could get a green lens with the pancake light. I had a blue one as a POC F/F in Illinois. It was one of the brighter lights based on the reflector size. I also did not know that they had a PAR 46 beacon. I remember you could get their twinsonic shaped lightbar with PAR 46s.
 
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coop359

Member
Apr 16, 2012
495
USA Tennessee
When I got on hired at the PD in 1988, we had the S&W bars like the catalog. Some had rectangular bulbs for flashers and some had PAR 36s. No alley lights. All red. Then we tried 1 Jet sonic in red. Then Streethawks w/ speaker grills red/blue with dual takedown lights in lower. They flashed with the alley lights in position 3, then all light street hawks, then MX7000, then 1 Tomar Neobe strobe bar, Whelen Patriot with 8 strobes and 6 7mm LEDs and halogen TD/ AL, then Whelen Liberty and finally 1st gen FS Valor bars in dual color red/blue. Wonder what they will go with next change over.
 
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cmb56

Member
May 22, 2010
746
Norrköping, Sweden
Smith & Wesson was selling rebranded equipment from Dietz and Yankee before they came with their own line of equipment seen in this catalog.

The mechanics of the 236 and 436 lights are Arrow.

I should have some brochures of the old equipment somewhere but it is not at hand at the moment.

We had a warning equipment distributor here in Sweden in the 80s that bought some test samples from S&W but they never started to sell anything.

They had a special made test sample of the bar that had two offset rotators and two rectangular sealed beams on one side and two rotators with diamond mirror in between on the other side.

Michael
 
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nerdly_dood

Member
Jun 15, 2010
2,312
Georgia
I always wondered if this was actually the same company that makes guns, that logo gives it away for sure.
 
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Wailer

Member
May 24, 2010
2,290
Canada
The early Smith & Wesson Magnum series electronic sirens (with the large pushbuttons) were sold under other brand names (e.g. the Stephenson Magnum IV and the Dietz OmniSound). There are demos of these sirens on YouTube.
 

Thebakerman

Member
Jul 31, 2018
45
South Florida
We had some of those S&W bars in the mid to late 80's and it was always interesting to me how they used standard rectangular automobile headlamps for the front takedown and rear flashers. That would have made replacing them inexpensive and easy to source. I don't see it included in this catalog but I recall seeing security vehicles in some of the local gated communities using these bars with green lenses. Perhaps green became available later on.
 
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tsquale

Lifetime VIP Donor
Oct 12, 2010
10,511
Minnesota, USA
We had some of those S&W bars in the mid to late 80's and it was always interesting to me how they used standard rectangular automobile headlamps for the front takedown and rear flashers. That would have made replacing them inexpensive and easy to source. I don't see it included in this catalog but I recall seeing security vehicles in some of the local gated communities using these bars with green lenses. Perhaps green became available later on.
Here is my green one
 
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CrownVic97

Member
May 21, 2010
3,350
Hazen, ND
Those are the late model Magnum sirens. I have the Magnum IV B. It sounds like a cross between an early 1980s Southern VP SA400 and a General Electric Power-Call/Siren.

Couple of videos to demo what Wailer said. And he's right! They sound really damn good!


 

LRGJr72

Member
May 29, 2010
790
Detroit, Michigan
I bid on this catalog like crazy On eBay. Once it got over $36 I was out. But the screenshots are worthy of sharing here.
 

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