Tag Archives: gun collecting

P-38 101

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I’ve always had a soft spot for P-38s (the guns, not the can openers, as I find the longer P-51 type a much better form of the latter and don’t even get me into the P-38 Lightning) since I was a kid.

With that, I had the great opportunity recently while in the GDC Vault to find examples made by all three WWII makers– Walther, Spreewerk, and Mauser– as well as some Cold War-era West German Ulm-marked guns.

There you go…

For insights into how to tell them apart and what to look for, check out my column at Guns.com. https://www.guns.com/news/2019/12/04/the-world-of-german-p-38s-walther-mauser-spreewerk-and-otherwise

Are You a Gun Hoarder

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We’ve all seen the shows advertised on television about hoarders and hoarding: those sad lonely people who sit in their home overwhelmed by clutter and junk. Compulsive hoarding (also called pathological collecting) may affect as much as 5% of the population. Can you be a gun hoarder? Let’s talk about that.

Hoarder vs. Collector

Most hoarder cases profiled are situations where a person refuses to get rid of otherwise worthless items (such as old newspapers, household garbage, phone books, etc.) seeing some future use for them. A collector will specialize in one particular type of item and pursue an interest in that item. For example, a collector may have 100 different coffee mugs from all over the world, whereas a hoarder would have 100 paper coffee cups all from one place…often still with coffee in them.

Read more in my column at Firearms Talk 

Silver and Gold or Brass and Steel

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Investment firms across the country for a generation have recommended buying precious metals such as silver and gold as a hedge against inflation. However, what should be evaluated alongside that in investing in steel and brass.

Let us look at a theoretical example. The retirees looking to claim their Social Security benefits this year at age 66 would have been 18 years old in 1964. Say that young person had $20 to invest. He could have bought about one half ounce of gold or a WW2 surplus M1 carbine  for that price. Today that little throw away warbaby carbine would be worth $850-900 and the half-ounce of gold right at $812.

Read the rest at my column at Firearms Talk http://www.firearmstalk.com/entries/Silver-and-Gold-or-Brass-and-Steel.html

In the 60s you could get TWO M1 Garands for $134….now that was a deal…