So, you've just been outbid for Lord Mountbatten's Purdeys.
The anonymous phone bid has pulled the rug out from under you - you coulda been a player - it would have been a real Gunshop-bbs coup for you, with a topic like, "Got my Mountbatten Purdeys today" lots of pictures to follow guys.
Or! Would you?
Who are these guys who win at the vanity level?
Is there some secret bbs for them to post in?
I mean, how could you not tell!

You been in the Missouri Moonshine again ?

I think he's eating last years mushrooms again.

Lowell:

You know that mobile home park, the one just outside the boundaries of sprawling Glenthorne Manor? Whenever you notice an odd odor coming from that direction DON'T BREATHE THOSE FUMES!
<G>

Bill

Purdey is hard to beat. One can trace roots of know how to good ole' John Twigg one of the first English gunmakers to make quality double on that island. The 'Ghost Value' is off the scale!

Good question Mr. Glenthorne! Makes me wonder too sometimes. They must be a quite secretive group, because I never see posts like "Just got my royal .410ga pair from Lewis Drake today" or "What wood did you choose for your new Paradox gun?". Im sure we have some board members who would drop a 100k on a fine purdey or fabbri, but then again if I was spending money like that I guess I wouldnt be shouting to the world how rich I am. As far as being outbid by phone, well, maybe it was by a close "friend" of the auction house. When you know the right people, its amazing what you can accomplish. Tell you what, if I ever order a new Purdey hammer gun or the new H & H Paradox, Ill let you know, and Ill post pictures. Im afraid that by the time that I have enough money to even put a down payment on one of those, the internet and this fine bbs will be old technology and long forgotten! sigh, if I was only the son of a rich Texas oil barron. I could have all the high grades of all the fine makers

Does this mean my meager accumulation of Sterlingworth's, NID's, and Nitro Specials don't qualify for snob appeal? Egads, somebody gimme the moonshine jug please.

You gotta wonder - Lewis Drake has had sold signs on some pretty fab guns over the years.....and yet!
Big auctions of important guns come and go....and yet!

Thornman,
You know the game is rigged in every way, always has been. There are special keys and phone #'s for everything. Problem is with the above you must also have the gelt as not everything in Inside World is a bargain...just more accessible. Be content knowing you lack the credentials. It's not all scotch and cigars there either.

Hansli, hearsay, or been there?
...if its the latter, pray tell us more about the inner workings of the high end gun buyer.

You can not get to that site from your internet service. Sorry I could tell you where to post, but it would do you no good and just server to remind you how limited you are. No offense old chap but your school tie is the wrong color. Public school and all you understand....

The guys who buy Parker Bros. Invincibles, the reall BoWhoop and Lord Louis' Purdeys are out making money, not spending their time on these sites!!!

I do understand! thats why I'm asking the important collectors to pipe-in.

Thornster,
I'm just a peapicker but I am privy to observe the inner sanctum... from time to time. Not guns unfortunately, but other stuff of similar ilk. Call it observed hearsay.

Dave, the old money out there doesn't have to do any more work than getting up out of bed in the morning-not to be confused with new money.

The rich are, different. So are we, but, I like to think in a good way. I mean, I care if my guns get rusty...
Best,
Ted

I recall my late father-in-law winning bids on guns that he never so much as blinked for. He was within at least the first circle. Lowell's suspicions are correct IMO. I don't mean to say the auctions are rigged, just that some houses know what a collector needs and will essentially bid for them. Still, a person could compete against it, but it may cost more than market to acquire the piece if this is going on. The auctioneer has the advantage in most cases, of knowing more about market value than most buyers.

Low Glen always be lookin' fo' some names to drop. Like he can be people by knowin' people. Dat why he he'e! Ain't no never matter. He knows there is another rung...another ladder...a higher floor with a secret staircase to another world beyond mere manors and manners. He doesn't seem to get that almost ALL have too much but never enough.

Wanting is not reception bound, no matter what fool seeks what fools and their gold.

Just chuckin' some shuck'n'jive over here, Boss!~)

LG,
Book some high-end driven bird shoots, start rubbing elbows, talk the talk, have your estate's gatekeeper call mine...pretty soon us hoi polloi will be amusing history.

In atomic terms, old money has a very short half life and new money even shorter. Fortunes vanish in short order when the earning stops and the spending begins. Considering that we are still organized by families, it is very difficult to keep the earnings going from generation to generation. "Hey, we got more money than I can ever spend!! Why should I work?" Well, because it is knee-buckling the amount of money that can be spent in a lifetime dedicated to spending. A wealty lifestyle, not to be confused with a wealthy life, requires prodigious spending; the ability to spend is how one proves a wealthy lifestyle. "Shirt sleves to shirt sleves in three generations" is hard to avoid - seen it many times.

Say you got a $10,000,000 after tax lump of money. Year in year out you could probably spend 4% without reducing the value of the principle (based on reasonabley low risk investments). That is $400,000 or maybe $200,000 after tax. So, a $1,000,000 house will tap you for, oh, say $125,000 a year and a luxury car will set you back $75,000, so no Purdeys the first year --- no food either!!

Of course there are inner circles. Always have been and always will be. And, yes, money does buy favor.

So what you are saying is that material objects mean nothing because Mother Nature can come along with a tornado and suck everything you have accumulated in your life into the sky and shred it into confetti and blow it into the next county because when you really think about it, you are no different than a bug in the ground and when you die you just turn to dust and no one ever really amounts to anything when you get right down to it, whether they ever had anything or not. Or is that what I'm saying?

That's a really dim view of life, the universe and everything, Jim. Being the spiritual sort myself, I prefer the partial apotheosis of the Frisbeetarian faith, which states that when we die, our souls fly up to land on the roof and get stuck there.

jack

Brer' Rabbit, were I you, I would find another "faith" to belong to. Gettin' stuck on the roof ain't what I have in mind when I die!!

Jack, I gotta go along with the Chief here, I wanta go farther than the roof--by quite a ways. But then again, that may be a whole lot better than going to a "real hot" cellar.
Curtis

I think Rocketman needs a more creative money man!
...and some of the others need a man who will listen for 150.00 an hour.

R. L. Wilson perhaps? Or was that more of a self-help thing?

jack

Low Tho, I'm happy to know what your shrink costs but be aware that the magnificent head petters charge more than the payments on minivans, your mortgage or investment income.
It's all about your ability, senility, vulnerability, depravity and/or stooping to take at your level.
None win. Some take. Few play with the likes...

No, JW, that is not at all what I said. I said it is a lot easier to spend big lumps of money that to earn/acquire them. It is difficult and rare to keep an earning lifestyle across three generations of family. It seems to be human nature to "lay down the shovel and the hoe" as soon as there is what appears to be a family life-time bank roll. Most people dramatically underestimate how much they will spend with a "spendy" lifestyle. More money is needed to actively collect high dollar guns than most would think. And, yes, I know about investments - good and bad. It is amazing how many people, both with big income streams and who "acquire" a chunkogreen, see it all as disposable and never consider how much to save/invest before the chunk/stream is gone. Oh, yes, I also said Yankee dollars will buy privledge and favor (P&F) as surely as do Pounds Stirling, Euros, Yen, Pesos, or any other coin. Note that for everyone buying P&F, there are several people selling it; this also strikes me as fundamental to human nature and nature in general. Ever see a pup astruttin' a new bone in front of his litter mates?

There is a spend period in the middle of your life that you should take advantage of, after that, life becomes pretty basic - no matter how much money you have in the bank!

When you receive 'chef-d'oeuvre' from Peter Hofer, my sincere congratulations, you made it!

Well said, Lord Lowell - look at the hapless gunshow types in their wheelchairs or towing O2 bottles on their follow-on dollies or handy sling-mount backpacks, desperately gleaning the aisles - for what? - Guns they can't really handle or shoot! When one reaches the plateau the feeling of having lived the "well done!" gun life sets in - complacent resignation that we can't take them with us. Time to blow them out to the highest offer; dealers and auctioneers be damned. Best way to leave the planet is in bed dreaming of the last left-and-right on speeding ducks or piled up in the grouse woods over the favorite high-grade smallbore with the confused bird dog guarding you from strangers. As the nostalgically angry Nash Buckingham once put it, "Anno Domini always wins."

Nobody told that to J. Howard Marshall II

Finally, thank you Chuck. Good ole' Howie knew the game! Cuttle up, wash me back, dance, dance, dance, etc..... Good back massage from pretty farm gal is hard to beat, they got those strong hands!

For those concerned/depressed about the "pretty basic" phase of life, I suggst you look to Bill Wise for enlightenment and inspiration as to how well "pretty basic" can be done.

Between the mizer who dies with a big bank account and no good memories and the adventurer who dies with a bag of memories but destitute and a burden on others, I think there is a middle ground. A ground where you spend at a rate suitable to your income on things that will give you good memories.

Both of my parents are in their 80s, in decent health/active and have more than enough money to do anything. A good time now, is splitting a bottle of beer, a box of Cheez-its and watching the Discovery Channel.
In their 50s - 60s, they bought land, tractors and more land.
Do it now, with in your means, or a little over - you'll have plenty of Cheez-it time down the road.

All things considered, wouldn't a frisbee fly on forever in a vacum? Death sucks so it must be a vacum. So I don't think landing on the roof for an eternity will actually be a problem. I think this is spelled out nicely in the Book of Frisbee.

Bob, altho finely argued, I believe your interpretation involves physametics which, altho not the least abhorent in a post- and/or supra-natural context, are generally considered heretical in mainline M.E. (Mezzanine Episcopal) Frisbeetarianism.

jack

"Fly" implies aerodynamic forces. There is no air in a vacuum. Ergo, a frisbee can't fly in a vacuum. Should it be launched in a vacuum, it will contiue on a path determined by launch direction and gravitational forces until it hits something, like a roof. Well, i don't see the "funnin'" icons, so I'll jez have to hope youall recognized funnin' when you read it.

So your telling me that if I die and my wife puts me on the roof of our hOuse trAiler and the neighbors kid Ergo is pitch'n his frisbee while his moms run'n the vacuum cleaner and it happens to land on my dead body that I'll be launched into space untill I hit something.

Will this work for everyone or do you have to be a "Frisbeetarianism" ?

Here Spookmeister, you can find this "BLUEcrowd" right down the road frome me: Robbreportville

beep... beep... beep...
[recorded female voice] - Good morning! You are calling Gun Collectors Anonimous Hot Line. Unfortunatly, all operators are busy at the moment. Please, hold the line, or call later!
beep...
[Mozart playing]
beep...
[tired female voice] - Good morning! Gun Collectors Anonimous Hot Line, I'm Jane, can I help you?
[worried male voice] - Erm... Yes, I guess. You know, I've been collecting for, erm, some years and... I'm starting to wonder...
- Go on...
- Only, I don't realy think I do have a problem, but my wife says I do, and, she's filing for a divorce if I don't do something about it...
- Well, I want you to ralex for now, because very probably it's not something very serious... How can I call you?
- E-e-erm... James, yeah, call me James.
- So, James, let me ask you a few questions. How many guns do you have?
- Just over a hundred, it isn't too many, is it?
- And how many guns do you buy in a month, on the average?
- Erm... One or two.
- Well, James, you're absolutly not the worst case I've handled, and you have a very positive motivation to quit - you don't want to lose your wife, do you?
- Of course I don't! Her lawyer will rip off half my collection!
- [frustrated] Guess that's it... What are you collecting, by the way?
- Purdeys!
- Only Purdeys?
- They are the most wonderful guns ever made, and there's hardly any reason to consider anything else!
- YOU'RE BUYING A PURDEY EVERY MONTH???!!!
- [proudly] Sometimes more!
- [very worried] James, I'm afraid you do have a very serious problem with your collecting habits, and you ought to consider...
[God Save the Queen playing]
["James"] - Oh, excuse me, there's my gun dealer on the mobile... Can you hold the line?
- James, out of interest - can you say "No!" just once? Can you pick up the phone and tell your dealer you're not interested?
- I'll try... [speaking into the mobile] Hello, hello... A-ha, I see... Uh-huh... uh-huh... Oh really? What's the serial No? [hesitatnly] That's certainly... [pause] No. I'm not interseted. Not at this price. I might take it for 65,00 and noot a penny less. Good-bye! [hangs up, to Jane] See?!

What a night mare.

And here I sit, shimming the hook of an 80 year-old Nitro Special, happy to be able to walk well enough to shoot a few pen-raised birds. Alas, what have we come to? No Purdeys, Bosses, or even Sw's (grossly over-rated). I am happy enough with good Yankee stuff and have no worries about what I've left behind: good kids with a sense of value and a love of country. Chopper

This Chopper - is where most of us are, our station/lot in life.
...but the most Yankee of them all, might be the Sterlingworth.
Its all relative, one man's Purdey, and one man's Nitro Special - just depends

80 years old? That's nothing. Check out good ole' Durs at about 170 years young. Top notch from 'Pall Mall'
PS. With Durs on the wall plus enamel on gold Patek Philippe of bit later vintage in thy pocket, and one of you boys could be in a chase for the prize!

So, if one were to buy that 170 year old beauty, would one take it out, put in some black powder/wadding/shot etc. and pop a cap or just put it away? Inquiring minds want to know. Jake

That ole' 'Betsy' has been afield plenty, just look at the drop points and the wear to checkering. Like they say, if well taken care of those great ones just don't seem to putter out. I would not mind hanging it up on the wall in my wine cellar (humidity and temp is well controlled) where the "old decoys swim"!