There I am aged 13 in 1981 and my pride and joy is a second-hand Original 66, and I spend many hours leafing through the M&G catalogue deciding which other of their guns I will buy with my imaginary money.
Two years later, I have saved actual money and been very nice to my parents, and the answer is an FWB Sport, and I pretty much forget my earlier fascination with Originals.
Fast forward to this week, and I find myself buying an Original 5G. Because I wanted one when I was 13. And I'm very pleased with it.
Now, I've always been more of an accumulator than a proper collector and am clearly suffering from a bout of middle-aged nostalgia. But I'm now toying with the idea of trying to collect a representative selection of early 80s Originals. Because:
- They are all high quality properly made accurate guns that will, properly cared for, last forever.
- They include the 3 main action types (lots of break-barrels, an underlever (50), and a sidelever (75).
- They cover just about all the basic types of springer: a sporting/informal target pistol (5G); match pistols (6G, 6M, 10); very nice youth rifles (23, 25, 27); a classic mid-weight mid-power sporter (35/35S); a full-size powerful sporter (45); a traditional u/l (50); and two types of match rifle (66, 75); and many of them in a variety of interesting variants. I can't think of any other manufacturer with such a comprehensive range. Extend the timeframe forward and you can add in full power springers in both normal (48/52) and suppressed recoil (54) variants - and I see they've just brought out a gas-ram, at least in the states.
- They aren't as sought after as, say, Webleys or BSAs, so are not bad value. Although there are fewer of them around.
So:
1. Have a contracted a dangerous bug called collector-itis?
2. Anyone else feel similarly about these guns, that don't seem to have quite the following of some other makes?
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by fatttmannn
My 54 that I had on a number of occasions embarressed pcp,s with its accuracey