I don't want to be an alarmist, but....

[Holeshot]

My recent purchase from GB tells me the bottom feeders are not paying up for guns like they were. My guess is that they have more then enough of the good deal Parkers sitting around. and that the demand has weakened enough so they must sell at a loss to move them along. I'm not sure we will ever recover from this as our youth seem more interested in cheap, ugly, plastic. My oldest son just informed me that the woodwork in his new house is old fashioned, stained and varnished, and needs to be updated to white trim.

[davidboyles]

It seems like when I go hunting these days I am the odd Duck with a gun that is nearly twice my age and I just turned 70. I agree with what you are saying the new hunters are more interested in horsepower and glitz not beauty or patina that was borne through caring hands. Everytime I'm in the field these days and I'm not with fellow SS hunters I am surrounded by plastic , carbon fiber and stamped metal if it even has any real metal on it. When I show up with a classic double like we all share passion for it takes a person pushing 50 to even ask "What's That" and then they may perk up to a response of it's a Parker, Model 21 ,LC or Ithaca. Something about shooting these old guns that hell most of the time don't even fit us modern frames makes me feel special and privileged to own and carry on the life of that fine piece of equipment. My last trip abroad was purposely made to do what the old explorers did and that I read about as a kid. that was to carry around a double barreled 12 pound 125 year old gun with hammers and shoot a 2000lb Cape Buffalo. Done just as dead as with a plastic stocked 416 Remington. As I preached in the article "American Heritage My Parker " I hope we can reach enough young hunters to carry the torch and handoff to the next generation. Too long winded I know but it's been on my mind as well as the rest of the readership. Thanks

[Eric Ross]

Hi, First post and first day on the form as a member. I want to put a few of you to ease by saying that I'm 28 years of age and an avid SxS collector with a special passion for Parkers. Im sure that I'm a small section of my age range to have this passion but fortunately my generation has become a large part of the firearm society and with the hope of less gun bans and regulations maybe it will give them a chance to appreciate the finer firearms.
Thanks for the years of good reading on this form!

[jay shachter]

Hey Guys,

It is a concern of someone like myself who has chosen this as a business and a means of support for my family and retirement. I ask these question often, and others have asked me a lot over the last few years. What I see is that there are replacements for the older gents that are no longer shooting and are therefore selling there guns. The replacements are the 45-55 year olds who have a better than average income, some time to have a dog and read the sporting journals that tout our style of guns, have killed their fair share of game with modern guns, and have become nostalgic with their middle age sanctum. They want a car like they had in college, a motorcycle like they had in high school, and a gun that they just read about or maybe their uncle had. They are our new buyers. The problem is that we, the baby boomers, outnumber the newcomers by a substantial number. The replacements are not coming in at the rate the older gents are going out, but I believe "nostalgia" will always occur. Many experienced shooters decide that the romance is better than the technology, the history is more interesting than modern, and as some other writer said, "it is now how many you kill, by how you kill them" or something like that, becomes the thoughts of the hunter when they wake up to go afield.

There are fewer buyers, no doubt. But I don't see it falling away, just balancing out. Keep in mind, there are fewer good guns out there as time goes by, and that will help keep prices close to what they are now.

Jay Shachter, President
Vintage Firearms, Inc.
www.vfiguns.com