KY just touched on how many vintage guns got the short end of the deal in the 1960s, in fact it has always been one of those annoying things that sits in my memory above all other gun related memories.
Here in Brit land older though good guns came under attack from all sides, but in my reckoning the main culprits of the great vintage gun demise can be laid squarely at the door of the gun retail trade and the mass import of low cost Spanish shotguns. It all started like this, in the majority of small towns in the countryside during the 1950s and early 1960s there was always a local Ironmongers or hardware stores that sold shotgun cartridges and the odd shotgun or two because the shotgun licencing we have here today had not been introduced. Also, most country residents had a shot gun as a part of normal life and a good number where inherited to keep up the supply of the odd rabbit duck and pigeon for the table.
Now if your trusty fathers or grandfathers gun developed a fault in a majority of cases you would take it to the store where you purchased your ammunition. Now the store owner would instantly see a sales opportunity to sell one of those cheap Spanish shotguns with a sales speech I have listened to many times, “well the gun is quite old it could cost you a lot if I send it off for repair, But I could sell you one of these new all singing and dancing hammerless Spanish guns and allow you a cash reduction for that old gun of yours.” Now the profit margin on Spanish guns at this time was incredibly high, so with a few pounds reduction on the purchase price of a new gun by part exchanging your old gun, out the store you went happy and your old may be top quality hammer gun had the barrels cut in half and put in the metal scrap bin. Little did you know when you walked out of the store that all singing and dancing new gun of yours will give you nothing but heartache and problems in the not too distant future.
Now came the more pernicious method of removing guns from the hands of the unknowing shooting public, starting with the sharp intake of breath by the salesman in the gun store, there were a number of these in the larger towns doted about the more rural counties. Followed by “it has Damascus barrels there could be some safety problems with those,” if I heard this once I must have heard it a thousand times. This seemed to be the gun trade mantra for the time and inevitably would continue with the usual we have these wonderful Spanish Box Lock ejectors at such a low price practically give away, I am sure we could come to some arrangement with some reduction for that old gun of yours.
I did take my rather elderly Cogswell & Harrison with Damascus barrels in to a local gun store to put in a new sight the old one had gone missing, and I was given the opening lines “it’s got Damascus barrels” my reply was yes, they are! And they are in proof should that be a problem. Realising that I was not going to fall for the sales pitch the sight was replaced and no more was said about my guns barrels.
In just a few years a very large number of vintage guns where destroyed, many high quality ones like the Purdey I saved, and it was all for the want to sell and make a couple of pounds profit. The only satisfaction I did get was when shot gun licencing was introduced here a lot of these part time gun retail outlets closed and the hammer guns that where left heaved a big sigh of relief.
