At my gunsmith yesterday, saw a consignment gun he'd just taken in.
Unfired 6-inch Smith 28-2 .357 Mag from the 70s.
A REAL Model 28, not what S&W's putting out today.
I WOULD have a problem replacing my older Smiths with current production, because the current Smith revolvers are simply not the same guns.
Gunsmith & I did a few sad choruses of "They ain't what they used to was", and we got on with the main business of the Colt Peacemaker I was there for.
Also getting harder to find those, with Colt dribbling them out. And Colt isn't making those guns to the quality levels of my Peacemakers that have gone through aftermarket hands.
I would have a problem with replacing those Colts with current production.
Some guns you just want to keep going, and some guns you want to pass down (with spare parts) to another generation.
Going by the deterioration in the current firearms industry in general, that'll be the only way anybody will even have a clue of what true quality is (or was) in 25 years.
Denis