Annual Meeting... Well????

[Bruce Day]

Well, as I discussed, there are 4 underlifter C Bernards, and the general collector knowledge is that one survives. There are 35 top lever C Bernards, 10 10ga and 25 12ga. This is one of a handful of known surviving 12's. High barrel and stock refinished condition, uncut, newer Jostam Hy Gun pad, great barrels. SN 36,491 , an early top lever, ca 1883. There is a better one of these, but they are rare.

We had a lot of rare guns. A new , maybe never shot 8 ga CH damascus, nothing but drag marks on standing breech, nothing case colored over. A new 1917 deep cut engraving 28ga Acme, nothing but ejector drag marks. So many outstanding C grades where there were 4 or 2 known and they were all there. Now who knows what is in some closet someplace but I think the instances of those finds are getting fewer.

I personally brought 3 guns, all almost unique for one reason or another, but there were so many fine guns there that a person could spend hours looking carefully at each gun. Dean brought his newly acquired Benard, an outstanding example of a standard Bernard 12, and one that he bought at a very good price while others sat on their hands and hoped the price would get lower still.

So people have asked me to do a PP's article on C's, something updating the TPS chapter and I suppose I will do that with what we now know . C's had great variety and that can be discussed at length. But as I talked Sat night, I saw one of the ladies start to doze off and so I thought I had better cut this thing short before more start to get chair whiplash, so I did, and could go on and on until everyone is asleep.

[JLoew]

Bruce- you gave a wonderful presentation on the Grade 4 guns. I thoroughly enjoyed it. To me, that really brings the People's Choice full circle. For those that might seek knowledge on the particular guns that are on display, we can have one of our resident experts discuss them. The People's Choice this year was something special, for sure.

Kudos to David Dwyer for making the phone calls, pleading, begging and doing the heavy lifting to get so many nice guns out of the closets. 3 C 28s in one place (all in nice condition to boot!) was really a treat.

[Opening Day]

Well here are a couple of displays at the show. Let's see if I can do this right
The first picture is of DH damascus guns 8 ga through 28 ga. The second pic is of Gary's Hammer gun display (very very nice)