As I stated, there are other methodologies out there. Some fellow collectors have contributed some additional thoughts for you to ponder. Please give them a look and see if they can help you with your collection mindset:
By: KirbyTheOG Sanders "Chaos theory is quite the rage in some scientific circles and, as far as I am concerned, an excellent way to collect firearms.
For starters, two things led me to my interest in collecting military-surplus and other specimen firearms. Those were an interest in the technological history of warfare and, the fuse that lit the keg, a 1941 Beretta m34 semi-auto pistol that my father brought back after WWII.He gave me the pistol several years ago (an early legacy item) and it looked forlornly alone amongst my existing collection of reproduction mediaeval swords, crossbows and armor-- so forlorn and lonely it was that I decided it had to have some friends to keep it company. What followed was a collection that is based on a long list of "I-wants" as well as a long list of "I-gots". The intriguing mechanics of the semi-automatic auto-load function actually became my first focus. It intrigued me to see how different countries at different times designed these 'single-stroke engines' as I frequently refer to them. I began to read various firearms magazines and books and to haunt the internet looking for websites and discussion boards that dealt with older semi-automatic firearms. I also discovered the joy of the hunt. Being a man of modest means, my collecting spirit has had to be tempered with a cautious eye on the cashflow. I discovered that many of my ''I-wants'' were out of my ''I can afford'' category, until I started reading the occasional post or tale from other collectors aboput incredible gunshow and pawnshop finds. I determined then that (a) with a long enough hunt, I could probably find almost everything I was interested in at a price I was willing to pay and (b) if I haunted the auctions, out-of-the-way pawnshops and gunshows I could probably find other specimens of lesser interest that I could eventually trade for bigger and better things. I decided to put the theory into practice and it has been fairly successful.
Examples? O.K.-- I decided I wanted a Hakim, which were selling for about $275 at the time in the area where I live. I also decided I wasn't going to pay more than $200 for a good one. After about six months of watching my friends shake their heads at poor delusional kirby's quest for a decent Hakim under $200, it came to me. I was attending a small gunshow whe one walked through the door on another fellow's shoulder-- $175 out the door. The only haggling I did was to ask the fellow if he would take a check or wanted to hold it and a $50 for five minutes while I drove to the ATM machine. He took the check.
One of my better 'finagles' was the $20 H&R revolver. I went to a police department unclaimed-items auction and this sad little revolver-in-a-baggie came up for auction-- as-is non-working parts. The auctioneer worked his way from $50 down to $20 begging for bids and I figured the parts were probably worth $30, so I bid the $20. He hammered it down and it was mine. I got it home and put it together-- all of the parts were there and it's only problem was that the cylinder fell out when it was opened to load. I took it to my gunsmith for an estimate and it turned out that all that was wrong was somebody had apparently been playing cowboy with it, popping the cylinder open rather than gently laying it over and the crane was slightly bent. For $15 he re-bent the crane and she functioned flawlessly. I had a nice little $35 revolver, but I still didn't care for a revolver-- took it to a gunshow and traded it for a Moisin Nagant m91. Didn't particularly care for the MN, but it was a definite trade-up. I cleaned up the Moisin and sold it for $100 a few weeks later. That $100 paid most of the tab for a $125 Frommer STOP. Neat, neat, neat little .32 cal Hungarian military model from circa 1910. Through a circuitous route, that Frommer cost me $60. It cost me a $35 revolver and $25 cash AND gave me a neat MN m91 to mess with for several weeks.
Pawnshop finds are a bit trickier-- while some of the in-town pawnshop guys don't know much about collector guns, they tend to mark guns high in general. I have found the absolute best pawnshop deals in small-town pawnshops. They take these ''funky old guns,'' but the ''thutty-thutty'' seeking deerhunters don't generally care to buy some 'weird-calibre'' milsurp rifle or would rank a new Lorcin .380 just above an old Mauser m10 pistol. Therefore, the small-town pawnshops will often find themselves ''stuck'' with a nice specimen milsurp and will frequently haggle down to a decent price just to get their investment back. Remember-- pawnshops make their money lending money, not selling merchandise. If the smaller pawnshops make their investment back on a rifle that's been sitting there for 10-12 months, that money will bring them three times what they'd make selling the rifle at marked price. I got a $99 SKS that way when the going market for them was around $150.
The result of this method of collecting is a very fluid and eclectic collection. It gives you the opportunity to learn about and use different firearms that might never have known you were interested in. Another result is that curiosity may set in, and a rifle you bought ''because it was cheap'' may set you into studies of countries and periods in history that you never knew you were interested in. Such was the case with me and a Turkish Mauser m95/34. It was cheap tradin' fodder until I shot it a couple of times-- then it moved across the room and turned my Egyptian Collection into a budding Middle Eastern firearms collection.
Only once have I gotten ''burned'' in a buy low, sell high plan. That's a $50 barrelled action Mossberg 200k shotgun that is sitting at the back of the vault. This is an interesting pump-action, BOX-MAGAZINE 12 gauge that Mossberg only produced for a couple years in the mid-1950s. I figured for $50 on a Mossberg, a stock would be easy and cheap to replace. Ooops. Seem the only reason Mossberg only made this model for a couple years was because the stocks were weak and tended to break-- believe me, there do not appear to be ANY to be found in the United States or Canada.
Even on that one, though, I'm not sure I got burned. Since there is no original stock to be found, the more I think about it the more I believe it wants to a box-magazine, pump action, WIRE-STOCK 12 gauge. There's a little old machine-shop guy down the highway about 10 miles says he can fabricate the wire stock for about $50-- and I don't think $100 is that bad for a one-of-a-kind riot gun.
The point of the journey, after all, isn't always the destination." -kirbyTheOG
Thanks, Kirby, for the interesting strategy - Njanear
So there you have it: some more original concepts on collecting from some fellow C&R collectors. With all of these methods made available, I hope that one or some can assist you in making a decision on which way to guide your collection. Have a great day and come back often to see what changes have taken place in Njanear's C&R Collections.
