Of course, my Dad was around back in the halcyon days before 1968; he had a Ruger Standard .22 pistol that he bought around 1955 or so, and he bought it mail order – filled out a form, put it in an envelope with a check, mailed it in, received his handgun by return mail. Oh, for the days of civilized laws!

When I was about 14, I was spending a fair amount of my spare time in the summers looking for big, robust woodchucks that were 1) very common in the field edges and rock outcrops of Allamakee County, Iowa and 2) tasty in stews. The big rodents were tough, and a regular .22 long rifle didn’t always put them down with dispatch if one couldn’t get a headshot. I wanted more oomph, so I took some of my summer ag-work money made from detasseling corn, haying, and walking beans and went to the aforementioned Olsen’s Boat House with my Dad. Old Bob Olsen had a brand-new Marlin 783 in the rack, that being a bolt-action .22 WMR (Winchester Magnum Rimfire.) Technically – this was the post-1968 world – my dad was buying the gun, but I handed old Bob Olsen the money, and we all knew who was buying the rifle. Dad filled out the forms, but the rifle was mine. It still is, in fact, as that .22 WMR rifle made the trip to the Great Land and resides in my safe even now. The .22WMR proved effective on woodchucks, crows, and the various other pests that the Old Man would send me to deal with from time to time. And that’s the use it is put to here in Alaska, even to this day.

My friends and I all spent a fair amount of time hanging around in Olsen’s Boat House. Old Bob and his son Bryce, who took over the business when Bob retired, liked having their usual covey of teens around, as we bought all of our fishing tackle and outdoor gear there, and they liked gassing with us about hunting and fishing in between customers. They were in the business because they liked hunting and fishing themselves, and running the store didn’t seem to really be work; it was a labor of love, not least of which was because of the gun rack, loaded not only with new guns but with older ones, some taken on trade, some sold to them outright.

There was a lot of history in that gun rack.

Stark’s Sporting Goods in Prairie du Chien was much the same, with the exception being that the Olsen family eventually closed up the boat house, whereas the Stark’s enterprise – now called Stark’s Sports Shop – is still in business, although I have not set foot in there for many years. My oldest daughter and her husband have been, as Stark’s is only a few hours’ drive from their eastern Iowa home, and they report that it is much as it was – a regular old outdoor sports store, with boats, guns, and fishing tackle – oh, and booze, too, which is the same as it was back in the day. I cannot report on the presence of any tobacco there, though, which (unlike our local Three Bears outlets) precludes it from being a true alcohol, tobacco, and firearms store.

And then came around the summer of 1978, if memory serves, when I landed a job at the Woolco in Cedar Falls, working in Sporting Goods. It was the dream job for teenage me; I stood around talking hunting and fishing all day, advising people on gun and fishing tackle purchases; my manager was delighted to have a guy working in the department who actually knew something about firearms. But, while we maintained a good and varied inventory, Woolco also only sold new guns.

The Big Stores

Of course, the bigger stores used to carry a good variety of used guns, mostly taken on trade. Being a collector, mostly of pre-64 Winchesters and Belgian Brownings, I frequent places with used-gun racks, looking for the mostly pre-WW2 stuff I like to mess with. And yes, the occasional prize appeared in these big stores, too.

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Case in point: When we still lived in Colorado, there was a Sportsman’s Warehouse outlet near us, and they frequently took guns on trade. They also had a good gunsmith in-house; I bought guns and supplies from them and on occasion had their gunsmith do some work for me, so I was on a first-name basis with the manager of the department and most of the guys who worked the gun counter.

One afternoon I walked in to buy some 12-gauge AA trap loads, as I was shooting a lot of trap in those days, and as usual, I walked by the used gun rack. One piece caught my eye, as the barrel looked a little… thin.

“Let me see that Auto-5,” I asked the clerk.

By way of background, I had in my collection a beautiful old 12-gauge Auto-5, and had shot quite a bit of trap with it; it was a bit like swinging a telephone pole, as it was longer and heavier than my Citori, which was my usual trap gun, but I liked it and it shot well. But for some time I had been looking for the smaller-framed, 16-gauge version, appropriately called the Sweet Sixteen. But people who had Belgian Sweet Sixteens were, then as now, hanging on to them.

The clerk handed me the Browning just as the manager walked over. “When I saw you come in,” he said, “I know you’d be wanting to see that.”

Yup. There it was, lighter and handier than my 12-gauge, with the beautiful script on the receiver, “Sweet Sixteen,” a Belgian gun made around 1964. In good shape, too, with at least 90 percent of the original finish.

“Write it up,” I said. “I’m buying it.” The Sweet Sixteen had been in the used gun rack for less than 12 hours. That gun remains in my collection today. It's a great-handling piece, noticeably lighter than the 12, and with its improved-modified choke barrel, it is murder on open-country, late-season birds, and actually is pretty good on the trap range - mostly a 12-gauge game.

But nowadays, you don’t find these kinds of deals very often.

These Days

Nowadays, it’s all big-box sporting outlets like Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops, and Sportsman’s Warehouse, who only seem to sell new guns. Even our local Three Bears – a true alcohol, tobacco, and firearms retailer – only sells new guns. For used stuff, especially the pre-WW2 stuff I prefer to mess with, it’s Gunbroker, or in some areas, gun shows and even pawn shops.

The problem with gun shows is that they tend to be very heavy on Tacticool. A few years back I went to a huge gun show in Pennsylvania that supposedly had a thousand tables; the problem was that probably 995 of them were Tacticool-only. That’s great if you like that sort of thing, but the one guy I found who had a 20-gauge Winchester Model 12 (which I need to round out my collection) but his copy, an ordinary field-grade gun with maybe half the original finish, was priced as though it were a mint Pigeon Grade skeet gun. “But this is a Model 12,” he told me, “…it’s a collectible!”

“Nope. It’s just old.” I offered him $250. He declined.

The problem with pawn shops is that, while one does find the occasional gem, most of the guns you’ll find, especially in urban areas, are either a) cheap junk, b) badly abused, or c) both.

But we do have Gunbroker and the other online outlets. Most of the guns I like are Curios & Relics eligible, so I can skip a few steps and have them shipped straight to me since I’m a licensed collector. My favorite spruce grouse gun, a Henry Tolley side-by-side sidelock 12 gauge, hand-made in Birmingham in 1892, was purchased on Gunbroker. It's a marvel - a tad over six pounds, the fastest shotgun I've ever handled. 

The Curio & Relics license makes buying old guns online a lot easier. But I sure do miss the old days of really great gun shops with a big selection of used stuff to look over; I’ve spent many happy hours doing just that.

Although, there is one gun shop I’d like to visit beyond all others.