Originally Posted by Ted Schefelbein
0
Originally Posted by Shotgunlover
Per kilogram cost a best gun goes about 30 000 dollars while a Ferrari is only about 150.

I have seen the hand stitching of the leather interiors of high end cars, and please do not try to tell me that that type of craftsmanship is not on par with lock making or stocking. It is.

Back in the golden days of gunmaking, the early 1900s, a best gun cost a 1/4 of a naval officers annual salary. Today it costs about double. Something simply does not add up.

Let us hope the new owners will make round actions truly affordable.

I don’t believe the standard of living that a turn of the last century laborer had is comparable to someone in the trade, today.

Remember the famous photo of the English stocker, working into his 90s, (his name escapes me at the moment) who was given a pair of briar pipes in thanks for his decades of labor? I ‘gotta believe a stock maker, working a shift in his 90s, is a guy who is financially cornered, and really doesn’t have a choice in the matter. He is blessed that he can, but, I’d bet he wouldn’t if he had an option.

Those guys aren’t there, anymore. They don’t have to be. That is built into the gun price. There are places where the same turn of the century business model could be utilized, today, think North Korea, China, India, or, anyplace else you wouldn’t want to live. They could make it happen.

But, you wouldn’t buy the gun.

Best,
Ted

Ebenezer Hands. Stocker for Wilkes. He did it that long because he could and that’s what people from his generation did. Retirement was considered a death sentence. Both of my grandfathers were the same way….one stopped farming in his late 60’s and then worked on a crew that built bridges.
The other was forced into retirement in his late 60’s when the plantation closed down and then went to work cleaning the schools. They didn’t have to keep working, they both were smart with their money….they did it because they wanted to. Old school mentalities. Such a foreign way of thinking in this day and age, hard to understand for us modern folk.
I doubt Ebenezer Hands took months off from work to go hunting and he definitely didn’t tell folks he wasn’t taking on anymore work. I know a few old school trained guys that still think the same way Ebenezer did.