I don't know if this is original nickel. A S&W would have a big fat N stamped on the frame. The inside of the stocks each have 2000 written in a black felt pen. I suppose $20 replacements. Checkering has a lot of bite and the inside shows a lot of tooling marks and a red 5. The butt was not polished before the nickel. You don't notice that w/stubby fat stocks extending beyond/covering the butt. Regardless of the butt I'm going to snoop around for a set of stocks that cover the bare minimum.
There are serrations on each side of the top strap. The right side is close to 1/4 wider. The channel between has been resurfaced/ground to change the polish to more of a matte style. Except they used a wheel. A wheel a mite too wide and not exactly centered. I can see a ramp on each side of the channel where it dropped in to dress the channel & take close to a 1/4 of the serrations width on the left side. This is also apparent at the end of the channel. The right side rolls back into the channel at the end of the frame and the wheel cut the left side, so there's nothing to roll. Not as noticeable as the width difference. This is my remark on the Colt Forum, "It was 1978, so perhaps the craftsman had just enjoyed the Cheech & Chong cinema debut, "Up in Smoke" prior to prepping this sidearm." There's been no response since that post. The ramp is a bead blasted matte save the front tip and the small sides of the rib.
The inside SW quadrant of the trigger guard is scratched the entire width for the most part. Seems the gun hung on something that didn't agree w/polish. Perhaps a display where it rocked upside down during transportation.
However, the BC gap comes in at .002". I noticed the fine lateral scratches on the front of the chambers. Appears enough rounds fired quickly will bridge the gap to naught.
The tip of the hammer wasn't dressed properly. The left side extends farther than the right & when viewing from behind you notice a facet that grows in width from left to right.
Trigger/hammer are matte front/back or top/bottom w/polished sides. To me it will look a bit odd in slimmer profile stocks that don't cover the butt. That nickel is shiny, but that part of the frame wasn't polished. Straight line tool/file marks running lengthwise will never come out w/o stripping the nickel.
I don't know anything about a Colt DS. The inside of the trigger guard is a condition not revealed in description, excellent w/some tiny nicks in the finish. The hammer tip appears to be ground by hand instead of using a guide to insure a single perpendicular angle.
I paid 750 shipped, but my state sales tax kicks it to 810. Still, that's about 80 clams less than asking which roughly covers the sales tax. Of course I knew about the sales tax & my guy getting 25 going in to the deal.
So, the little pistola is a contradiction in craftsmanship. One one hand this, but on the other that compromise.