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Why do YOU collect Winchesters?
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So.VT
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June 1, 2021 - 1:44 pm
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I was born and raised in New Haven CT in the early 1950’s. Some of my best memories were visiting the Winchester gun museum when it was still at the factory. I also remember the Savin Rock Amusement park and going to the shooting gallery with the Winchester pump rifles. Ten shots for a quarter I believe it cost. Later in life I caught the collecting bug while visiting tourist traps out west. Every shop had an old Winchester hanging on the wall for sale. Bought my first antique Winchester model 1894 in Colorado. I still own that one, but my collecting interest has turned back to the .22 slide action models I remember from the shooting gallery days.

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June 4, 2021 - 5:02 am
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For me the short answer is, “Like Father, Like Son”!

My father and I have a shared interest. I suppose in part I have the Winchester bug because I grew up with them. I spent many a gun show being carried on my father’s shoulders on the hunt. In doing so I learned the art of making a deal and much more.

Plus it for the most part is good clean fun!

Sincerely,

Maverick 

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June 4, 2021 - 12:39 pm
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Maverick said
For me the short answer is, “Like Father, Like Son”!

My father and I have a shared interest. I suppose in part I have the Winchester bug because I grew up with them. I spent many a gun show being carried on my father’s shoulders on the hunt. In doing so I learned the art of making a deal and much more.

Plus it for the most part is good clean fun!

Sincerely,

Maverick   

Maverick – that early training from your father sure gave you a jump start on many of us.  I didn’t attend my first gun show until I was a young adult.  Even though I was interested in guns long before that, I didn’t even know about shows!  My Dad was mildly interested in guns but that mainly had to do with what they were used for – hunting.  The bug bit me hard as a child and I recall I quickly burned my Dad out on the topic.  To be fair, I talked about guns incessantly and he just got his fill of the topic.  I will say guns were more popular among young people back then.  When I was in school, I did not participate in any school sports, nor did the guys I associated with.  Among our group, cars, guns and the fairer sex were the main topics.  Every time I went to a sporting goods store I always grabbed the free gun catalogs and would read them in class.  Sometimes, a teacher (never a female teacher) would catch me, take the catalog, read it himself and then give it back to me.  Think what they would do to a student now caught with such a catalog!

Another fun memory – my 7th grade English teacher was just starting his mail order gun business when I was in his class.  He specialized in antique and vintage firearms.  He put out a mailing catalog of his inventory for the next 50 years and I was a subscriber throughout that period.  I bought my first M1878 Burgess .45-70 “long range” lever action rifle from him in my early 20’s.  Unfortunately, I no longer have that rifle but I still have others I got from him.  Part of my attachment to those rifles is that they came from him.

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June 4, 2021 - 1:10 pm
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steve004 said

I didn’t attend my first gun show until I was a young adult.  

Gun shows hadn’t been invented before I was a young adult.

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June 4, 2021 - 3:44 pm
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I had My first .22 s.s. when I was 11 and would go to the local dump to shoot rats and the odd rabbit in the winter for the pot. Like most others My age ,70’s, I grew up with Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger , Gene Autry , etc. I loved them guys and them guns, the bad guys couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn door and the good guys couldn’t miss. I was well in My 20’s when I started “collecting” and I gotta tell Ya’ I met some pretty amazing people in the collecting fraternity that greatly influenced My life and the standards and principals I try to live by. Folks like Col. William (Bill) Brophy, Richard (Dick) Patterson, Harold Sleeth and the like, Down to earth “good” Folks who would take the time and effort to guide a newcomer in the proper direction. In My later years of gun collecting there are still lots of folks out there doing the same thing ,who I have a deep admiration and respect for, Like our own Bert Hartman, Vinny Martin , Michael, the The Texas Gun Nut, Clarence, Who I would like to meet up with sometime, and many more. I don’t know where one would go to duplicate The artistry,  craftsmanship and foresight of the people who manufactured these arms, in this day and age. Collecting the old Winchesters has served Me well over the years both broadening My horizons and also fiancially. I guess I just couldn’t point out one specific reason why I collect, but I can think of many good ones.

W.A.C.A. life member, Marlin Collectors Assn. charter and life member, C,S.S.A. member and general gun nut.

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June 4, 2021 - 5:09 pm
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Winchesters were always in my life.  My Dad always had one in his group of hunting guns.  He gave me my first one around 1960.  It was a 30 year old Model 12 in 16 gauge.  In the late 1980’s before my step father passed away he told me to pick out a couple of his guns.  I chose the 256 Newton and a Model 90 in WRF.  My sister got the Model 50 and my uncle got the Model 94. After his death I decided I was going to shoot these guns.  The WRF ammo was not as hard to find as he had thought.  The Newton is the first gun that I loaded ammo for.  This is also the time I started going to gun shows.  I thought I was going to shoot in SASS and started looking at Winchesters in a different way.   Never shot in SASS but I do have some Winchesters.  Oh, I will shoot the Newton next Tuesday.  I was lucky to have 2 fathers, both of which shot Winchesters.

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June 4, 2021 - 5:19 pm
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Mike,

This is probably not the answer you are looking for…  but I collect because I AM, and I CAN !!CoolLaugh

Bert

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June 5, 2021 - 12:20 am
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Bert H. said
Mike,

This is probably not the answer you are looking for…  but I collect because I AM, and I CAN !!CoolLaugh

Bert  

You’re right, Bert. Sort of. I am more interested in influences, circumstances and maybe events but I suspect many of us could cite the same reasons. I wasn’t looking for any answer in particular, figured it would be a lot more interesting if I kept an open mind. I also suspect for many of us the original reason has changed or interests have focused. Many of us have changed direction, Big Larry is a good example as he went from milsurp shotguns to rimfires and today is a resource to both types of collectors. Shrapnel and Henry Mero have helped me appreciate the guns that influenced Winchester in the early days because they did not  focus solely on Winchesters. Those of us who enjoy shooting our Winchesters and enjoy the writings of Mike Venturino on the subject owe Shrapnel a debt of gratitude for infecting him with the Winchester bug. MLV strayed for a few years down the milsurp path but I have it on good authority he has seen the error of his ways and is a Winchester collector again. 

Or, to put it more succinctly, Bert, there are no wrong answers.

 

Mike

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June 5, 2021 - 1:28 am
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TXGunNut said

Many of us have changed direction, Big Larry is a good example as he went from milsurp shotguns to rimfires and today is a resource to both types of collectors.

Shotguns were only a small part of Larry’s outstanding US military collection.  I began buying military rifles, mostly foreign, when I was in HS & they were being advertised at give-away prices in the Rifleman, but nothing to approach the quality of Larry’s former collection.   

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June 5, 2021 - 2:54 am
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clarence said

TXGunNut said
Many of us have changed direction, Big Larry is a good example as he went from milsurp shotguns to rimfires and today is a resource to both types of collectors.

Shotguns were only a small part of Larry’s outstanding US military collection.  I began buying military rifles, mostly foreign, when I was in HS & they were being advertised at give-away prices in the Rifleman, but nothing to approach the quality of Larry’s former collection.     

Thanks, I was only aware of his awesome Trench Gun and knew he had sold most of them off. I always enjoy Big Larry’s posts about his rimfires, good stuff! I’d love to pack up a rifle or two and head to the range with him. We probably wouldn’t need much ammo. I have almost no interest in milsurp outside of Winder Muskets and Riot or Trench Gun versions of the 1897 or 1912. If I was to get serious about a Trench Gun or Riot gun I’d need to have Big Larry or Bert on the phone as I’ve missed one really good one (maybe) and been sorely tempted by a few fake ones. Made one mistake on a “Riot” 1897 but it was a hoot to shoot skeet with. 

 

Mike

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June 5, 2021 - 3:11 am
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Folks,  Like has been posted by others, I am in my early 70s and grew up watching the westerns on the big screen or our black and white TV.  I played “cowboys and indians”, etc, but the last of my cap guns disappeared from home after I was in service.  I wasn’t aware just how much influence this all had on me until in 1973 when I saw a model 1873 rifle in Jensen’s Gun shop in Tucson, AZ.  I got it for the asking price of $200, which was pretty steep for a new Lieutenant.  It was serial number 83848, in .44 WCF.  And yes, I shot it!  NO idea why but years later I traded it off in the Tucson area.  Wish I had kept it, and I keep searching auctions for it.  My primary love is still the 1873 model, but I have a big heart and others found some room there!  Tim

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June 5, 2021 - 3:20 am
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tim tomlinson said
Folks,  Like has been posted by others, I am in my early 70s and grew up watching the westerns on the big screen or our black and white TV.  I played “cowboys and indians”, etc, but the last of my cap guns disappeared from home after I was in service.  I wasn’t aware just how much influence this all had on me until in 1973 when I saw a model 1873 rifle in Jensen’s Gun shop in Tucson, AZ.  I got it for the asking price of $200, which was pretty steep for a new Lieutenant.  It was serial number 83848, in .44 WCF.  And yes, I shot it!  NO idea why but years later I traded it off in the Tucson area.  Wish I had kept it, and I keep searching auctions for it.  My primary love is still the 1873 model, but I have a big heart and others found some room there!  Tim  

Now there’s a thread idea; “Guns I never should have sold”. Followed by “Guns I wish I hadn’t bought”. If it’s any consolation the “barely affordable” status made some guns very special to me. Some still are, some have moved on. 

 

Mike

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June 5, 2021 - 4:51 am
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TXGunNut said

Now there’s a thread idea; “Guns I never should have sold”.

Mike, I beg you, PLEASE don’t start that one!  Pig Eyes in the White House is all the clinical depression I can stand!

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June 5, 2021 - 5:49 am
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clarence said

TXGunNut said
Now there’s a thread idea; “Guns I never should have sold”.

Mike, I beg you, PLEASE don’t start that one!  Pig Eyes in the White House is all the clinical depression I can stand!  

Yes! I agree, can’t take much more!

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June 11, 2021 - 7:08 pm
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I spent a lot of time in my grandfather’s shop as a child where the second lesson after safety was that the Model 12 was the greatest shotgun of all time.  He gave me my first Model 12 (a Hydracoil gun with a replacement 4x wood stock made by him.  Grandpa could never understand how anyone could do something so horrible to a Model 12 as Hydracoil) for 8th grade graduation.  I have been collecting ever since and have shared Winchester collecting with my father and two uncles).  We all collected Model 12’s and 42’s.  I have expanded into Model 21s which they approved and Model 1895 rifles which they all thought ugly.  Hard to look in a cabinet without a gun bring back fond memories of all of them.

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