NEW THREAD (old topic): Condition Diminishing With Use

[stumpstalker]

QUOTE: "Why save them for the next guy."

QUOTE: "It's the next guy's problem and when that happens I'll be dead and won't care."
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That’s exactly my predicament. I worry NOW about the condition the gun will be in AFTER I'm dead.

[mobirdhunter]

Sometimes it's hard to fathom our guns that we have such an attachment to in the hands of someone else. We can only hope they treasure them as much as do we. I've made notes about each of my guns -- when and where I got them, any history/research letters, etc. and how I've used them. I don't have any kids to leave them to, so I can only hope that after I'm gone there still are collector-users that will appreciate them and their history. I also try to honor the previous caretakers of my guns by using and caring for them. In the end, I think that's all we can expect.

[Alfred Greeson]

I like the thought. So much learned on this forum and yes it seems you know people you have never met. Worth a lot some days. I always think of a note in a letter from Gene Hill to Michael McIntosh as he was loosing the battle with C! "Enjoy all things, for the bullet with your name on it was fired a long time ago!" We are caretakers of some of the greatest guns ever built and I think we share a responsibility to enjoy and care for them for the next generation. I like to think so anyway, wish my Dad was still here to enjoy them with me. He would have loved this forum.

[stumpstalker]

Garry and Alfred. So true.

Alluding to your father, Alfred, resonates with me. It is kind of what it’s all about: Successive generations appreciating experiences and things of quality.

My father introduced the “Parker mystique” to our home from the 1950s into the early 1970s. I can still picture him settled back and enjoying his copy of Peter H. Johnson’s PARKER -America’s Finest Shotgun; or, arriving home and uncasing for family viewing a newly-acquired gun.

I took no particular interest in the shotguns then but noted that there must be something special involved. The fact is, he was repeatedly characterized by others as being a perfectionist (which is not all bad, especially if you were his dental patient). And, when someone who is known as having such a punctilious bent really likes something, it warrants notice.

These guns connect people and do so on a finer plane. So, I am motivated, as I use them, to maintain their originality as much as my conscience dictates is practicable.

[Dean Romig]

Originally Posted by Russell E. Cleary

Garry and Alfred. So true.

Alluding to your father, Alfred, resonates with me. It is kind of what it’s all about: Successive generations appreciating experiences and things of quality.

My father introduced the “Parker mystique” to our home from the 1950s into the early 1970s. I can still picture him settled back and enjoying his copy of Peter H. Johnson’s PARKER -America’s Finest Shotgun; or, arriving home and uncasing for family viewing a newly-acquired gun.

I took no particular interest in the shotguns then but noted that there must be something special involved. The fact is, he was repeatedly characterized by others as being a perfectionist (which is not all bad, especially if you were his dental patient). And, when someone who is known as having such a punctilious bent such really likes something, it warrants notice.

These guns connect people and do so on a finer plane. So, I am motivated, as I use them, to maintain their originality as much as my conscience dictates is practicable.

Russell, you have some wonderful family history made in a place where some of the most important and significant American history was made - a stone's throw from Concord Bridge where colonial American's exercised their own form of guerilla warfare on the highly regimented British Redcoats...





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[mobirdhunter]

[QUOTE=Dean Romig; a stone's throw from Concord Bridge where colonial American's exercised their own form of guerilla warfare on the highly regimented British Redcoats...
.[/QUOTE]

I'm envious of those of you who grew up with Parkers and other fine shotguns. I recall Pop talking about Foxes and Parkers, but we had J.C. Higgins and the like in my early days, all we could afford growing up in coastal Virginia. We belonged to a poor man's hunt club, a group of church guys who knew a rich judge who owned 400 acres. This was near Williamsburg, VA (my home town) and sandwiched between Yorktown and Jamestown, we also were close to some early American history (I had to mention this for Dean and those members from New England). My best deer stand was from the top of a Revolutionary War embankment within a stones throw (literally) of the Colonial Parkway (a national park). We hunted squirrels and deer using guns a cut or two (or more) below a Parker. I do remember Pop shooting deer with a Stevens 311 20 gauge, but that's as close as we came to a fine double in my youth. Missouri writer Joel Vance and his buddy from Missouri (at the time), Michael McIntosh, turned me on to fine American double guns through their books and articles. I never thought I'd own a Parker, and feel very privileged to do so now. I also wish my Pop could see and use my Parkers now. I'm sure he'd appreciate them and what it took to acquire one.

[MarketHunter]

I owned a 32 inch DHE for a long time that was probably an 85% gun when I bought it. When I sold it years later it was maybe a 50% gun or less. But I sure had a lot of fun with it and it sure killed a lot of ducks. Guns are for shooting, that's always been my opinion.

[todd allen]

Think about a pair of high quality leather work gloves. They show some wear, but, once broken in, fit like an extension of your own skin. If you meditate on that for a moment, you will understand my attachment to my 32" VHE mentioned in my "Go to gun" post.
It was a pretty clean and honest gun, when I found it. I've melted it a little with loving, but sometimes hard use. No worries, my estate sale will sort it out one day.

[Alfred Greeson]

Make sure you leave behind an invitation list to that estate sale, there are a lot of us who would want to see that 32 VHE. I guess we are the generation who heard of Parkers but shot Stevens and model 12's with little or no blueing left on them. I grew up in one of the largest counties in TN and to my knowledge there were two parkers, one owned by the hardware store owner and other the county judge. But fishing was throwing the jon boat in the back of the pickup with the 10 horse Johnson and off to the lake when Daddy got off work or hurrying to the swamp to catch the woodies as they were dropping in for the night, 30 minutes like shooting bats in the twilight but great fun. Had fun and learned about living, like raiding a farmers watermelon patch in the dark...the next morning, Daddy looked at that giant watermelon and said "Do you know what you did son?" Right on top of that watermelon was a little "X", I had stolen the farmers seed melon he had been growing all summer for next years seed! That was all Daddy said ,but to this day I still regret it and have never stolen another watermelon. That farmer shot an old Remington model 11. Yea, we had fun and what we didn't have still makes me proud of what we can have today and I know those ole timers who taught us are looking down and smiling today.

[C.O.B.]

I have a couple of nice guns both rifles and shotguns and they all get used NOT abused. If you use them they way they were intended to be used IMHO everything will work out fine.

If your really worried about what will happen to them after your dead sell them now. That way you will know where they went and if they went to a good home.

I have no heirs to leave mine to either. I'm in the process of selling off some rifles and will put the rest in a trust with directions on how to best dispose of them.