SAD STORY (RE-POST FROM 2013)

[leVieux]

>

I heard soething recently which reminded me of this saga.

Long, long ago. . . . . . . . Waaaay back,when I was young and slim, I was a young Doctor "down" in the "Sparkling City by the Sea" the crown jewel of our Texas Gulf Coast. My older office partner was a very fine Yankee gentleman of German descent, a WW-II combat veteran, surgeon, and a "retired" ex US Navy Hospital Commander. His beautiful young wife, a professional singer from Canada, was pretty liberal for their day. One afternoon, the Doctor told me of a terrible problem he had. Seems that a very wealthy and grateful patient had sent him two primo firearms. One was a brand-new London custom double 20 in a fitted leather case with ivory snap caps and a gorgeous cleaning kit. Straight hand-cut top European walnut, etc. The second was a German .22 Anschutz target rifle, with fine stocks, sights, and accessories, also brand-new. His problem was that the young wife was "uncomfortable" with firearms in the home, even without ammo. Doctor inquired about selling them. Once I saw their great beauty, I decided to try to get him to keep them for his grandsons, who lived in quail & dove country in Jim Wells County. Figured I had convinced him to save the beautiful weapons. A few months later, I inquired how the grandsons liked the arms. To my great dismay he replied that he had sold them through a newspaper ad. Smiling, he told me that the first fellow to look bought them both. $100 for the .20 GA and $50 for the rifle. I thought I might just die and let him know that I would have gladly paid 10 or 20 times that for them ! So, now I am an old fat man. My advice to all is that, if you ever have a similar encounter, tell the friend that you'll keep his stuff protected in your safe until the issue is resolved. Good Evening, Rick

 

[Texasjack]

I was working in a refinery and the VP in charge called me into his office one day. He was somewhat of an art collector and he had a dozen Duck Stamp prints that he had won at an art show of some kind. He asked if I wanted to have them. Sure, but how much did he want. Oh, nothing, here take them. OK.

I thought the prints were worth like $20. I had an old frame and put one in my office. I gave the others away over the next couple of years, and I think I trashed one. Just for grins I looked them up online one day. Turns out they were worth $250-$300 each. I was fairly broke at the time and could have used that couple of grand that I could have gotten by selling the prints. Just totally stupid on my part.

 

[deemus]

Some of us have a cool gun story.

I bought a big box of crap at an estate sale. It had various old holsters, magazines for guns I still don't know, stripper clips and several guns in various states of disrepair. I pulled out that stuff I recognized and organized it, grabbed a couple of the holsters I had guns they worked in.

One day I resumed digging in that box and there was a blown up Ruger 44 blackhawk. I hung it on my loading bench as a conversation piece. One day reading on this board I saw someone say how good Ruger's CS was. So a couple days later I called them and asked if they would look at the gun. They would. I sent it. About a week later a lady called me and told me they decided the gun could not be repaired and they wanted to send me a new one. So they did. Pretty happy about it. I had it in my safe until fairly recently. During the Rona a buddy decided he had to have a revolver so I gave it to him cheap.

That same box had a rusty trobone of a gun, so rusty I could not even tell what it was. Took me three nights of steel wool action to get it where I could tell what I had. Turns out it needed cleaning, adjusting and a couple parts, but is a great shooter. Remington Model 24 SA, the Browning clone.