Who the &&$*# was Wes Adams??!!??

[JohnC]

What sucks is his family didn't care enough to keep them, or put them in a museum. Lot's of history there being sold off and scattered around. I'd had it put in my will to keep that collection together. I mean, seemed this guy put a lot of time and money in to this collection, just to have family sell it off.

[Jamie Jackson]

That is undoubtedly the most impressive collection I've ever heard of. I agree with the sentiment already expressed by many...Wow!

But I'm with Caster on this. I sure would want to shoot them... especially the Hotchkiss...and the Colt Gatling...and the Sharps...and the S&W Volcanic model pistols...

OK...all of them.

[Shug]

If he did amass his collection in 10 years. Where would he find all those extreamly fine examples. A couple I could understand, but not the quantity that he has. I think that his family should have opened a Wes Adams museum. The man obviously had a passion for his coletion

[jtmaze]

I could not live with myself without shooting the Sharps, well....all of them but like caster said light loads with extreme care. I have a friend that cracked a hand carved Marlin 45-70 stock playing with heavy bullets and loads. I would be extremely careful.

JTM

Sent from my iPhone

[MadMarx]

I'm bored this morning at work so I took a second and added up the auction from March. The total was over 4.25 million. HOLY CRAP.

[JAB]

THis thread is proof positive that if/when I win the lottery I will be hated and shunned by the gun community. I'd buy guns from auctions like this and I would shoot every dang one of them. I might go as far as handloading light loads and taking GREAT care with cleaning, lubrication and storage but be darned if I wouldn't shoot them!

So, would a fellow 'heretic' (me) be invited to shoot them, too? To me, part of the history of these guns is shooting them in the present. That is the only way, to my mind, to truly appreciate the craftsmanship, etc. that others have mentioned. Sure, light loads and great care, etc. but these aren't paintings, sculptures, etc, that are just made to look at (although some might be just as aesthetically pleasing.) I don't care how nice, old, rare, etc. they are - if these guns are just hanging in a museum somewhere not being fired then they are not much more than hunks of metal and wood languishing away, unused.

But, hey, I am also the kind of guy who, at various times in my life:

1. Used my great grandmother's bed (which, if I am not mistaken, was also her parents' bed - made in the late 1800s) as the bed I slept on every night,

2. Daily drove a 1964 Ford pickup truck for a couple of years when I was in college (mid-1990s)

3. Buy unusual, antique doorknobs to repurpose as handles for walking canes (when I get around to it)

4. Have used my great, great grandfather's sharpening steel to sharpen knives

5. Enjoy making cider on a 1800's era cider press that a friend has and

6. Waited until no one was looking then slipped off, by myself, to the mostly unused second floor of the herbalist's cottage in Savannah (the oldest standing structure in Georgia and possibly the oldest in the South) just to see what was up there (hey, there were no signs prohibiting it and no one told me not to so...)

So it isn't that I don't respect/value history. Instead, it is that I value and respect history so much that I want to experience it as much as possible. I would have been one of the scientists who ate part of a wooly mammoth that was found partially preserved in the permafrost or tasted wine found in amphoras at the bottom of the ocean from a Roman shipwreck centuries ago.

Edited September 24, 2012 by JAB

[Caster]

So, would a fellow 'heretic' (me) be invited to shoot them, too?

Heck yeah, but you gotta help clean any of the ones using black powder cartridges.

[MacGyver]

This should serve as a reminder to us all that when you die, your family may well just divide up the stuff you cared about and sell it for whatever they can get for it.

Reminds me of the old saying that, "my worst fear is that when I die my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them."

[JAB]

This should serve as a reminder to us all that when you die, your family may well just divide up the stuff you cared about and sell it for whatever they can get for it.

The other day my mom was talking about a couple of my guns. She commented that, since I don't have any kids to leave them to, I might one day want to leave them to one of my nephews. My response was, "Hell, no. I'm going to have those two buried with me just in case I have to shoot my way out!"

Edited September 24, 2012 by JAB

[Caster]

This should serve as a reminder to us all that when you die, your family may well just divide up the stuff you cared about and sell it for whatever they can get for it.

I thought about that. Then I realized, I'll be dead, I'm going to have a whole new set of issues to deal with and the last thing on my mind will be the stuff I left behind.

[MacGyver]

I thought about that. Then I realized, I'll be dead, I'm going to have a whole new set of issues to deal with and the last thing on my mind will be the stuff I left behind.

That's my general thought, too. That said, I hope I've got at least a couple of weapons that become treasured pieces of well shot family history.

[xRUSTYx]

Was going over the list today ... And its astonishing ... The amount of firearms, the amount of old flags, and NFA items!

The link posted was for Auction #1.

Take a look at Auction #2 .... http://jamesdjulia.com/auctions/div_catalog_327.asp?pageREQ=2

Take a look at ALL THOSE NFA Items! M16's (which look brand new) -- H&K's -- Tommy Guns -- A freakin MG42/59! 20+ NFA Fully Transferrable Firearms all in Excellent Condition. That's just nuts!

Thanks for the eye candy Greg!

Edited September 28, 2012 by xRUSTYx