Old Gun Stores – Collectibles and Fixer-Uppers
Note that in this piece, I’m not talking about old stores that sell guns, although those are great. I’m talking about stores that sell old guns.
I love walking through places that sell old guns, be they gun stores, pawn shops, or whatever. Back in the day, of course, every hardware store seemed to have a gun rack, and they were frequently holding older pieces that the store had taken on trade. I remember the old Coast to Coast store in Decorah, Iowa, where I always went when we were in town for one thing or another. There was another one in Oelwein, where the Old Man had bought a 12-gauge Stevens pump in 1947, when he returned from his World War 2 service.
Through the years I lived in the Denver area, gun shops came and went, but there was one over in Lakewood, on the western side of the metro area, that dealt almost exclusively in used guns, and unlike some faceless corporations with stupid rules, they accepted a Curio & Relics license for qualifying guns. I bought my Browning Auto-5 from them, and very nearly bought a Remington Model 10 trap gun, but the store owner and I couldn’t quite agree on the price.
See Also: Sunday Gun Day II - Curios and Relics
I can’t speak for what a lot of people look for in gun stores. But I know what I’m looking for. Of course, I'd really love to visit a pre-1934 gun shop, but it doesn't look like that's in the cards.
What Am I Looking For?Be it a big retailer, a small local store, or a pawn shop, the first question I usually ask is “Do you have any old Model 12s hidden anywhere?” The answer is usually no. It seems that the folks who own any of the remaining Model 12 shotguns are hanging on to them. In fact, last fall, I was handed a surprise when I asked that usual opening question at the Bass Pro Shop in Anchorage, which has few, if any, used guns. The kid behind the counter gave me a blank look. “What’s that?” he asked.
“The Model 12?” I asked, incredulously. “The Winchester Model 12? The Perfect Repeater? You sell guns and you’ve never heard of the Model 12?”
“Nope,” he said.
Shaking my head, I went outside to yell at a cloud.
There’s another common thread across the gun store spectrum, and it’s that an awful lot of people don’t get collectors. There’s a small gun shop in Wasilla that I drop into every now and then, and at one point, one of the clerks, knowing of my standard question, greeted me with a decent-enough-looking Model 12. It had originally been a simple field-grade gun, by the serial number, made in the 1950s. But it had been reblued and fitted with an aftermarket stock. A decent enough bird gun, but most people don’t understand that if it’s not original, a collector won’t be interested.
That’s not to say the only thing I’m looking for is collectibles. Fixer-uppers and project guns can be a lot of fun, too.
A Couple of Great Finds
A few old lists are floating around the internetz that are lampoons of the famous Jeff Foxworthy “You might be a redneck if…” jokes. These lampoons are variations on “You might be a gun nut if…” and the one that I fell prey to is the one that goes “If you buy a gun, take it home, then realize you used to own it, you might be a gun nut.”
The gun in question was a heavily sporterized 1903 Springfield, reblued, with new sights, scope mounts with an old Redfield mounted, and a pretty nice black walnut sporter stock. It was a nice rifle, and the guy selling it at a small western Colorado gun show wanted an amazingly low price for it. After handling it for a few moments, it hit me what seemed off about it: The cheekpiece was on the wrong side of the stock.
See Also: Sunday Gun Day Vol. II Ep. XXX - the 1903 Springfield Rifle
“Yeah,” the seller said when I asked. “That’s why I can’t sell it. It’s that left-handed stock.”
The seller was asking $275 for the rifle. This was, obviously, some time ago. I pulled out my gun show flash roll. “I’ll give you $175 cash, right now.”
He took the deal. I took the gun home, stripped it down, cleaned it, and then took a big cabinet rasp and took that cheekpiece right off the stock. After sanding it smooth and refinishing it, I had a nice Springfield sporter with an ambidextrous stock. I took a couple of deer with it, then parted with it in one of those Complicated Gun Deals that all gun people get caught up in from time to time. I think I got $350 in cash and trade value for it.
Two or three years later, in a pawn shop in Denver, another old Springfield caught my eye. Sporterized, again, and with a decent-enough-looking stock, again. It had an old Bushnell scope mounted. The stock had a rather rough engraving of a bull elk on the butt and another of a mule deer under the bolt handle. After some haggling and presenting my C&R license, I picked up the gun for $200 and took it home. When I went to my usual strip-down and clean, I picked up my book to compare serial numbers, thinking it looked familiar – and sure as shooting (hah) there it was. The same gun. I cleaned it up, managed to remove just enough wood to delete those crude carvings, and sold it for about $400, if memory serves.
My other great find was in a pawn shop in downtown Denver, a battered old Remington 700 in .30-06. I got it for $150 – it had been one subject in a messy divorce, and the soon-to-be-ex-husband had hidden it from his spouse in the rafters of an old garage, where it had water leak on it every time it rained. The stock was swollen and shot; the barrel was covered with rust. But oddly, the action seemed fine.
I took it home, removed the barrel and stock, and checked the action out. Seemed fine. I had a light sporter barrel installed, found a Six Enterprises synthetic stock for it, and mounted a Redfield scope. At that time, I figured I had $500 invested in the gun, and it’s the only gun I didn’t make a profit on, because I sold it to a young man for what I had in it. Why? Because the young man was loyal sidekick Rat, then a newcomer to hunting and the outdoors. He’s still using the Remington, and it is as good a shooter as that great rifle has a reputation for being.
Messing with old guns, be they collectibles or fixer-uppers, is just a lot of fun.
These Days:
Nowadays, I don’t get as many chances to run around checking out gun shops, small or otherwise. We live way out in the sticks, after all, and the nearest small gun shops and pawn shops are about 30 miles distant, and we don’t go to town at all without a compelling reason; after all, if I liked towns, I’d live in one.
Of course, it’s an amazing modern world we live in, and now we have the modern version of a small gun shop writ large: Online gun auction sites. We can log in, set the filter to “Collectibles – Curios and Relics,” and have a ball. I’ve been known to annoy my wife and let my supper grow cold while surfing the C&R sections of these sites, and my last few purchases have been from those very virtual pages. And the best part? I can have them shipped directly to me. No more going into town to pick them up from a dealer.
Still, there’s something to be said for the tangible experiences. We still drop down to Colorado now and then to visit family, and it occurs to me that next time we do so, I may have to go check out that old gun shop over in Lakewood.
Maybe he’s still got that Remington Model 10 trap gun. If he does, I wonder if he’d be willing to meet me on the price?
