Nice! I knew that was an early piece. The lines on the front of the frame are crisp. For a while early on we were hand sanding them round and then I said to my brother that I liked to look of the sharp lines better, so we stopped hand sanding the "dust cover" portion of the frames and left them natural, showing those crisp design lines. Those early frames were also hand glass beaded by me to further deburr them and soften the over lines of the frame. That frame is also the early hard coat anodizing by a company out of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Depending on how long the frame was in the tank would determine the color of the frame! Those colors are great and rare too. Each frame was a slightly different color then. That means also that the grips on that particular R9 are the original carbon fiber grips in either the blue or black. Notice that the Family Crest is wider than the newer style and that there is no Rohrbaugh name engraved into the grip. Nice again! Very rare grip set on this firearm. I can see your R9 was sent back to us for slide work as it has the last rendition of our slide, an updated version, which I can see by our own "in house coding", that being the left hand side of the slide is in block letters and the "Made in U.S.A." has the dots in between the USA, indicating the firing pin hole was moved about .002" to fully center in upon a round. A small detail but that's what makes the firearms unique knowing all of the little details. That was also an original Farmingdale built gun. I know that because by the time we moved to Deer Park, we were using regular anodizing and not the hard coat anodizing any more.
Overall, this is one stunning early R9.
I hope this background information can help in your sale and, perhaps, give your R9 some value.
Regards to All,
Eric C. Rohrbaugh