This thread is making me very sad.  We’ve lost a whole lot of fine people over the years. There’s some we all knew or at least knew of (e.g. Tommy Rholes) and many others each of us knew privately.  So many fine individuals – interesting, knowledgeable, strong character, grit you name it.  Really, some of the best people I’ve known. 

Up here in Canada, my own experience over the past year or so is that “average” Winchester lever guns have really dropped in price … maybe half of what I would have got 6 years ago. For example, I have a Model 1892 44 WCF made in 1913 that has been for sale for 5 days now (photo below). The asking price is $US 887, at least $700 less than what I would have advertised 6 years ago. 426 people have viewed my ad in our national (Canada) online website, and not a single person interested yet. (Note, this isn’t a way to sell an old Winchester, as the red tape to ship it south of the border is a show-stopper. I’m just using this as a current example of how prices for “normal” (i.e., non-high condition Winchesters) have gone a bit south.)

I don’t want to point fingers, but this a sort of “what happened???” question…

IF those of you in your 70’s, give or take, had gotten a single son (or daughter) interested in antique Winchesters, or, even a nephew or niece, younger neighbor, etc.–and I mean just one single person, the number of antique  Winchester collectors would at least be stable.

So, why didn’t this happen years ago?

I’m guessing, in my case, since this is what I seem to have noticed, Junior goes off to college, his father has a few nice Winchesters, but 4 years if brainwashing by a very liberal higher education system causes Junior to lose any interest in firearms.

This is in reference to 20 or 30 years ago…but is far worse now, as detailed in my first post in this particular thread.

Dave K. said
 I tended to hang out with older guys even as a teenager. All are gone now but most were WW2 war vets, like my father and uncle, who kept me enthralled with stories from the war as well as helping me with hunting, shooting and collecting. The local gun shows do attract quite a few younger people including kids and women who are hunters more than collectors or shooters but most of the vendors are old guys. At the local Fish and Game Club range most of the bench rest shooters are grey or no hairs but the combat and cowboy action shooters tend to attract younger folks. My 11 year old grandson shoots once a week with a junior shooters group and hopefully someday he will take an interest in granpa’s old Winchesters.  

I did the same thing.  And it wasn’t necessarily related to shooting, hunting and collecting.  As a teenager, I remember walking down the street (road back then) and stopping in and talking to different neighbors who were tinkering around in their garages  and workshops.  All of these guys were older than my dad.  I’m not thinking this was common among all teenagers.  Aside from Winchesters and collecting, maybe this is a commonality we have here.  As I think of it, it is logical to do this.  For example, these older guys all knew stuff and had lived seen and done things – and were willing to talk about.  Contrast this to my young peers who typically hadn’t been anywhere, done anything or actually knew anything.

Now, as to present times, I see no evidence this occurs.  I know there are young people in my (residential) neighborhood.  But, none stop in to chat when I am tinkering in my garage.  In fact, I never see them at all.  I suppose they are all indoors glued to their electronics.  

I know it’s not the single source of the problem but I believe our society would be light years better off if video games had never been invented.  And you can’t convince people of it now but we used to get along just fine without cell phones.  

There’s a good reason I call one of my favorite sources of old Winchesters “The Orphanage”. Many of the guns I buy there are from estates or from collectors who are no longer active for whatever reason. It’s sad but these are often guns that would never be for sale under any other circumstances. Good news/bad news is that most folks, sometimes even store management, don’t seem to know or care how special some of these old Winchesters are. I “adopt” all I can but there are many 60-70% or non-original guns left in the rack for months or even years with no takers.

Mike