I am afraid if I stumbled across £5m, my collection of 30ish rifles and a handful of pistols would not change. My van has 250,000miles the clock, so a new shape Transit for me, then houses for the family would eat the rest.
Would I buy a Girondoni? Nah
Having loads of cash and collecting are uneasy bedfellows I think. On the face of it, having easy cash makes it very easy to acquire something, not only collectibles. The thrill of pulling the trigger on a purchase that was a long time coming is like the cherry on the cake.
Having lots of cash usually means that the cherry is often missing on the cake which makes the satisfaction of acquisition very short lived.
Don't worry mate..If I won I would get one gold plated and give it to you just to annoy you
Would I would do for myself , if I won, would be to have a perfect replica or original old Fairground gallery made, with 10 positions, all prewar BSA's and have it taken and set up at steam fairs for folks to enjoy, maybe see if the Black Country Museum wanted a replica Lincoln Jeffries shop,........And as an indulgence...... have a set of perfect scale working BSA's made for plinking from my sunbed.
Who knows, might get back into wandering around flea markets again, but would be able to do it all over the world where stuff was different!
The rest I would probably give away to help folk out to be honest, or help out small charitys, If it was a huge Euro win, then NX611 Just Jane would be flying again
ATB, ED
Last edited by edbear2; 24-12-2020 at 09:25 AM.
Dont really considered myself a collector, but more of a tinkerer and someone who enjoys shooting, learning about and comparing airguns.
I like working on springers, and learning more about what makes them good and what makes them bad, and comparing the different models and mechanisms,
I also like to find old guns at car boot sales and markets, and getting them to work properly or as best as possible withing their limits.
Endless funds wouldnt change this much. I'd probably pay down the mortgage and get some rebuilding work done on the house, but I already have too many airguns to really be motivated to go out and buy everything that exists.
Like a few others in this section, I dont consider myself a collector, but I like to tinker.
I suppose in any form of collecting, there are people with money who will just outbid everyone. There are people on here who will pay quite a lot of money when something really collectable comes up as money doesnt seem to be a problem. If you have the money it doesnt really matter. If they put the minimum price of a unit of booze up or the price of petrol, it doesnt really matter to people who are wadded. I heard of one bloke on here years ago who was wadded and I think the thrill he got was getting the most money he could for anything he sold, whether it was a complete gun or spares. Also there was someone who seemed to get the thrill of buying stuff at car boot sales and then telling people the bits were not obtainable and how much the gun would be worth broken on the bay of evil.
If I had plenty of dosh, there are a few guns i would try to buy because I'd like to see if i liked then or not. There are a few others that I'd probably buy (maybe like the Acvoke ,Thunderbolt or Hubertus) that I am pretty sure i wouldnt like, but if you sold them on and lost a few quid it wouldnt matter.
I've never been able to justify getting an LP53, but Id love to pick up a cheapo Predom Lucznik.
A few of those Webley copies would be looked for or try to prise (or price?) them out of CCDJG's hands
Rifle wise, I'd like to get a few pre war rifles and a couple of the bolt action ones to try.
I think where it might make a difference to me is when you buy something that is rough and you know it can cost a lot of money to get it sorted and it is just not worth it. Well it is nice to get them going and it would be nice to be able to pass on the odd thing to other people who are interested and not be too bothered about being out of pocket.
Someone on here the other year (Shootfish?) had a Pre war Webley Junior with a screw at the side of the frame. Something like that is what interests me from the hobby and tinkering point of view rather than out and out collecting. I'd rather leave the mint condition stuff to the serious collectors with the white cotton gloves
Cooler than Mace Windu with a FRO, walking into Members Only and saying "Bitches, be cool"
Over the years i have acquired a lot of air rifles & disposed of a lot of them. All had some downside or another which as i was primarily a shooter rather than collector made me lose interest.
The mint Sharp ace i had, trigger like a rusty bear trap, lost intest & sold it, no regret, would i buy another? No way.
I tend to get attached to certain rifles on account of great shots i have done with them. My old Mk3 Webley is one such, great hunts & scores of rabbits, squizzers & pigeons.
Two Imp mod D Bsa's one very battered whose barrel is so worn out it shoots patterns rather than groups but no way will i ever sell it.
Its very good condition mate that is a first class shooter ditto.
A friend is an obsessive collector who simply has to have what he wants. Then puts it away never to be looked at again. He now has so many I wonder if he actually knows what he has any more.
I know another bloke who does the same with wooden boats, he buys the dream but then doesnt look after them but cannot bear to part with any of them, result is he has a large collection of derelict wrecks disintegrating all over southern england, all were beautiful craft in their day but are now mostly so far gone that they will end up being scrapped. Whats the point of that?
I agree with you totally the harder you strive for something the more you admire your gain Also the only difference a lottery win might do to my collecting is buy me somewhere better to shoot