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Well said fireball

Well said but not always well understood.

A buddy told me on Saturday, your the only one that I know that still hunts with a Savage 99 hes 70. The gun shows around here, old guns don't sell to well anymore, it's ARs or new bolt guns. See alot of oldies, but prices are way high, and the old dealers won't lower there prices!

Well, almost!!!!!!!!!!!

Thinking about selling the whole schlemiel and buying a vintage Jaguar in England and drive it around Europe for a month chasing good beer. The fact that Europe is dealing with an insane fuel crisis right now is a strong deterrent though. Maybe I should put the idea aside and seek out the Sharps Borchardt I've always wanted instead, or an Owen-built Springfield sporter, or a.......

I’ll second that motion!

Sadly, I have this personal experience.

Long, long time ago when I was in my mid-20’s, my house was burglarized. Pretty big heist. Lost a grandfather clock that was a wedding present from my parents, jewelery, 35mm camera + equipment, hunting knives, and all of my small gun collection except for my .357 Blackhawk. Other things were taken too. The 1984 value of the total loss was about $10,000. Happened on Good Friday - my then-wife and I were both working that holiday.

I lost the 200th year Ruger M77 .270 wearing a Leupold Vari-X III 3.5x10 which Dad had purchased for me, a beautifully stocked unfired Tikka 7mm Rem Mag (Dad had the exact same gun which I later inherited), an unfired Winchester ‘94, a SKB 200E 12-ga with a luggage case, a Springfield-Stevens semi-auto .22 that Dad had given me as a boy and a Mossberg single-shot bolt action .410 I had purchased from a family friend. As you can see by the details that I still remember about 38 years later, I treasured these guns. And you see the connections to Dad.

I even sold the Blackhawk a few years later and did not replace it.

This burglary experience changed my attitude about collecting guns. Eventually, I purchased two guns. A deer rifle and a shotgun, and I still have both. But it was 35 years before I acquired any more guns. Losing my guns was a painful experience. Only in the past 3 years have I started acquiring guns again.

I am sorry to hear this story. Thanks for sharing it.

I suffered a bad break in myself back in 14 and lost a fair amount of my collection. I said the hell with it for a couple of years but then had to realize it was just "stuff." No lives were lost. At the end of the day it's all just stuff, or material, and it's our good fortunes in life to have the opportunity to acquire. Many poeple can't. But I do stop from time to time and ask myself this question. What if it were all to go away tomorrow? Would I let it get under my skin or take it in stride? And if my answer is the former I keep working on it until I'm comfortable with the latter. And maybe all of the discussion we've been having on this topic may have something to say about the future of collecting guns with inflated values. It's just stuff, and its high priced stuff at that. And that makes the decsion to "leave it on the table" pretty simple.

High priced stuff is getting easier to walk away from. You can't have it all, at least I can't, so I have to make choices. I do have other things in my life that require money! I keep telling my wife my addiction to food and shelter is going to be the death of my gun collecting! LOL I just hope and pray I don't get the bug to build another 4 wheel drive truck before I die!

Yeah, that addiction to food is a tough one to kick. The withdrawals will kill you. And I keep fighting the urge to acquire another MGB, like the one I had in my teens and early 20s! Right now I own two Savage 99s. I liquidated 50% of my 99 collection about a year ago to make way for other things. But I am thinking about a Long Tom 99A in 303 to fulfill some more recent addictions. My other two 99s are both prewar, one being a take down 303 and the other an EG in 300 I got from you sir (Roy/Fireball) that fits my soul much as you described a few comments back.

I remember the EG well. I have a mate to it but in 30-30. Those uncheckered EG's have an understated elegance about them.

I have reduced my inventory significantly in the past year. I still have all the guns I'll ever need. And then some.

Still some places on this earth that I want to see and hunt before I get too old and crippled up. I have resources, but they aren't unlimited. That cash is going to buy me some memories.

I enjoyed the guns, but now it's on to other things...

Sheep. Maybe the next big thing for me is raising sheep, and cornering the market on fleece lined underwear.

[quote=gnoahhh]Thinking about selling the whole schlemiel and buying a vintage Jaguar in England and drive it around Europe for a month chasing good beer .../quote]

We're not getting any younger,: modify your sentence to read "beer and women", buy a plane ticket, and go chase your dream.

Sheep lined underwear. I never thought about that one. I bet it’s an easier market to corner than 303 brass!

As amended by Keith …. Do it! Do it! Do it!

Memories of a great adventure last a lifetime.

That's sort of the point I got to. I want to do stuff more than buy stuff.

I pared the collection way down to about 10 total firearms several years ago, and that's about where it hovers. Anything I hadn't shot in a year hit the road, and what I have left all gets shot regularly. I have a lot more fun shooting those 10 and using the leftover money on other pursuits than I did with safes full of bores collecting dust.

Since this is a "Collector's Forum" I'll add that while the concept of devoting one's life to the pursuit of one make of gun is foreign to me, I respect those who do that. Just a difference in how our brains are all wired differently. At the end of the day, as the final curtain is being drawn, all that matters is "did you have fun?"

Of course their are no right or wrong answers.

Respectfully, everybody has their own tastes and priorities.