What have you found when you bought an old used gun?

What's the neatest thing you've found, when you've purchased an old used gun? I bought an old 12 ga SXS from a pawn shop, for a wall hanger. It is an old gun, it has the damascus steel twist barrels, hammerless, but with two triggers. Got it home and was checking it out. Took the butt plate off, and something was rolled up inside it. I took it out, and lo and behold, it was hunting license from 1934, from Earth County, Minnesota. Had the guys name and what kind of ducks he'd shot that year. Pretty neat I thought. I've tried a couple times to track the guy down, I'm sure he's dead by now, but thought maybe his kinfolk would be interested in where the gun wound up. Even called the Game Department up there, to see if maybe they'd be interested in the license for their display. They were kinda like, yeah, no, maybe, I don't know. So, I figured since I thought it was neater than they did, I'd just keep it.

What have other folks found? Just curious.

I'm not real sure, but I think this is supposed to go with that old thing...
--Kinfolks selling off parts of an estate

It was just the leather gun case the Model 12 came with back so many years ago...

:)

Well, I didn't exactly buy the gun, but...

My mother in law gave me my late father in law's 1903 Springfield, which I am restoring. A few weeks later she found the reciept for it and gave it to me. He had paid something like $15 for the rifle.

I had the reciept framed and it hangs on the wall next to an old picture of him driving a Farmall tractor. :cool:

I bought a 91/30 Mosin Nagant today actually. Neatest thing?

Well, after I got home, I realised I had this bronze goo all over my white shirt. It was so neat finding that gun to be so dirty.

2 nearly 80 year old rifles made in the same month- 1 already had, and the other bought at a show.

Swiss K31 - found the tag inside the buttplate with the name, birthdate and address of the last guy who owned the rifle.

Finn M39 - seeing the "8" (as in 1898) on the receiver. Of course, I knew that it was an antique before buying it, but it was still neat to see that this rifle was older than all of my grandparents.

Garand (not so neat) - a crapped-out op-rod spring.

I once opened the buttplate trapdoor of an 1896 Krag and found, unused and still in the original package, a very old and dried up - condom. Obviously at least one soldier believed in using his rifle and his gun.

Jim

I bought a Turkish Mauser from J&G last year and when I started cleaning it, I found that someone had written "HELLO" in pencil on the stock underneath the barrel.

Hmmm.

I wonder when the practice of protecting the bore with a condom originated?

I'm sure the practice started earlier than Vietnam…

The only other thing that comes to mind was that maybe that old Krag saw service in the charge on San Juan hill with the "Rough Riders"… LOL...

Otherwise, coolest thing I've found is the nametag under the buttplate of my K31 as well...

I heard about a guy who opened the buttstock compartment on a FR-8 and found a '70s-era Spanish porno mag.

My first handgun was a used Dan Wesson .44 magnum. The guy I bought it from apparentlly was not familiar with cleaning procedures. The barrel was so caked with lead It took me an hour to clean it. I think if I had tried to fire it that way it would have blown up in my face.

Bought and old well used Colt 27 sistema, Gun looked like someone left it in the mud and had orange clay under the grips. Wasn't expecting much but gun cleaned up great. Replaced all the springs and talk about night and day. Gun has about 90% of the blueing left and looks great. P.S man does she shoot well.....Great buy! and 100% reliable......Cant say that for some of the newer guns I bought from other manufactuers....:D

I have the original DCM paperwork for the 1903 I inherited from my Grandfather, and the original War Assets Department paperwork for his 1911, also now mine.

I've found dried-up grass and mud underneath the buttplate of my VZ-24.
Who knows, maybe it was grass from another country long ao?

I found 3 coins, all from the early 50's, behind the buttplate of a Yugoslav mauser. They were a 20 Dinara, and a 1 and 5 Dinar.

Bought an old Smith M29 and...rummaging through trash and accumulated papers during a house cleaning...found out that it was the same gun I had sold 12 years earlier. None worse for the time spent at large, either.

At a gunshow a couple of years ago, minutes apart, I bought a S&W model 18 from a dealer and a model 14 from a walk in. Ser # on the 18- 1k63xx, the 14-1k23xx. Both made about a month apart in 1970 or '71. Joe

This is pretty cool. Coins, registrations...

I have a Finn 28/30 with shrapneal embedded in the stock. You can see the gouges and feel the bits of metal when you run your hand over the gouges.

I fear for the fate of the soldier who carried that gun.

I found I bought a Ruger Mark I that shoots low, way low. :uhoh:

I guess I should just consider it a "stupid tax."

-Jeff

I bought a old colt 38spl from a pawn
shop for $139.00.Turns out it was a
pre war official police,i later sold
it for $375.00.

I once opened the buttplate trapdoor of an 1896 Krag and found, unused and still in the original package, a very old and dried up - condom. Obviously at least one soldier believed in using his rifle and his gun.

Maybe someone carried the gun and condom more recently on a hunting trip. I was thinking to cover the barrel, but draw your own conclusions.

when i was looking for a mod 60 about a year ago, i found one that looked absolutely brand new. It was majorly on sale, for 35 bucks, because he swore it had a problem, the guy he got it from told him so. I offered him 30 and he took it. when i got it home it was liked locked up... couldn't get it to go fully forward, or pull the bolt to the rear. tried to load some rounds down the tube, no good, couldn't even see them trying to peak out into the lifter. So I take it apart, and waa laa! The seller tried to load a 22 mag round in it , and totally jammed up between the feed tube and lifter. Took it out , and it is now perfect.

One local fellow is said to have bought an old shotgun and found a $1,000 bill under the buttplate!

Pretty interesting items found over the years. The reason I asked this, my illegitimate brother in law, was telling me a story about finding something once in an old gun he bought. I mentioned to him that I'd just bought this old shotgun, and he asked me if I'd taken the buttplate off yet. I said, no, got the gun and a screwdriver, took it off, and my eyes bugged out when I saw something inside the stock. I looked at him, like he planted it there on purpose. I had look of shock on my face. Facts I've gained since I found that license, was most hunters used to do that with their hunting license. They'd roll it up, stick it in the stock. Most people didn't carry their wallets with them while out hunting. Back in the 30's wallets were a lot bigger than what we carry now.

As others have mentioned the K-31 name tag. Pretty cool - he was a REMF like me :D .

An Albanian SKS had a really chewed up/carved upon stock (from AIM so I didn't see it before it arrived).

Grass in between the receiver/stock.

Nothing really exciting or unexpected.

I bought a S&W 22 revolver once that had a real dirty barrel for $75. The "dirt" turned out to be 2 $20's and a $10 rolled up and stuffed in it.

I am Sooooooooo going home tonight and checkout some of my butt plates:what:

I am Sooooooooo going home tonight and checkout some of my butt plates
+1 LOL

from a 103 year old man who attended our church and was living with his grandson, we had to clean out a lot of old "stuff" to make room for our own stuff. This gentleman had built the house in 1920 and lived there untill just recently before we rented.

In the basement was an old "junkie" looking .22, which we set aside to return to the grandson. In a nearby box we found VERY old looking .22 rounds, a dozen or so 1930 and 1940 vintage Maine hunting tags, and fuel ration cards form the early 1940's.

In the garage was another box with every years liscence plate from the 1930's to the early 1990's (when I assume he gave up his drivers liscence).

I got to meet the old gent half a dozen times or so. He was a gas....cracking jokes, etc..

"Did I tell you I've got a girlfriend? can't remember her name though"

Once at a church service....he stood up and sang "How Great Thou Art" .....acapella....:o

The grandson told us that when the wife died some 8 years earlier, he was helping his gramps clean out her things and they found money stashed all over the house! In coffee cans stuffed in the walls mostly. This couple had survived the depression and probably, the wife didn't trust banks. According to the grandson, they found over $10,000.

When I was trying to stuff insulation in the walls from the basement to stop a bad draft, I found that the house was insulated with old clothes...pajamas...etc... :eek: I was excited to find a coffee can...with three $1 bills:rolleyes: .....upon closer observation they turned out to be silver certificates!!!.

We boxed up all the money and stuff for the grandson. They gave the .22 to our pastor (an avid hunter and trapper) as a keepsake. I kept one old hunting liscense and one ration card, as the grandson wasn't really interested in them. I desperately wanted the license plates.....but we left them in the garage when we moved out. Shortly after The old timer died and his descendanst sold off the house. To this day I regret not getting a metal detector and going through the garden with it.......good chance there're coffee cans out there to.

Cosmoline. Lots and lots of cosmoline.

That's Blue Earth County, MN , Big Larry. I've found paper under the handguards of Mosin Nagants, but no $$$ yet.:(

:rolleyes: I guess I'm off to tear apart some guns

entropy, you are exactly correct. It's been a while since I've looked at that license, so thanks for the correction. I knew when I typed it, it didn't sound totally correct, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of what the rest was. I knew it was Earth something, or something earth. Thanks for the info.

Well while not a gun, I found chicken feathers along with gritty sand in some Israeli Orlite magazines. I don't know how the chicken feathers got inside.

K-31 tag of course too

Swiss K31 - found the tag inside the buttplate with the name, birthdate and address of the last guy who owned the rifle.

From what I've heard, that's pretty standard for those. Swiss citizens were expected to demonstrate proficiency with their rifle, took it home with them, and were expected to keep it in good condition and good working order. They were "assigned" a K-31, each of them, to have at home for the national defense. And people put tags with their name and address inside the buttplate, as a result.

Be nice if we had that, hm?

Now I have another reason to buy the Mosin and Mauser I've been considering.

My late father collected guns, and once he came home with a filthy old flintlock blunderbuss. I was just a kid, and he put me to work cleaning it up. When I got to the bore, I picked my way down through a bunch of bug nests and dirt, then a layer of hard, corroded crap, and then started pulling out bits of fabric. It was then that I realized it was still loaded.
This is me and the gun, many years later.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-7/1052094/86871170-picture.jpeg
Marty

Back in the Eighties, my dad went to Kittery, Maine to help his stepmother get my grandfather buried and go through some papers and junk. He was surprised to find a (loaded) Colt 1911A1, some old G.I. mags, and a (also loaded) H&R .32 breaktop DAO 5 shooter.

There was a bunch of loose assorted ammo for the .45, as well as an old box of Remington-Peters, nickel cased. Some of the older loose rounds had headstamps from the Teens and Twenties, and a few from the Thirties and Forties as well.

Being young and ignorant, yes, I shot all of it off. I remember some rounds just barely pushing the bullet out of the barrel. Very few would not go off at all after repeated tries. I am still amazed at how viable old ammunition can be after decades of indifferent storage.

Dad still has the .45 as his house gun, and I still kick myself mentally for plinking with antique and collectible ammunition. I realize now that the gun may not be the only cool thing, and when someone shows me an old gun, I ask about anything else that might go with it.

A friend of mine bought a lot of 5 M-44s. He was treated to a cosmoline soaked 7.62 X 54R round in the chamber.

I bought my very first gun when I was 16 (over 40 years ago). The gun shop said it was defective and didn't shoot very well and so I could have it for $50.00. It was a mauser 98 that had been sporterized, reblued, and had a custom engraved stock. It was beautiful! They said it was a 7MM but it had no caliper markings. They were right it shot like crap. Then a older uncle of mine looked at it and told me he didn't think it was a 7MM but a 8MM. He took it to a gunsmith friend and confirmed it. The thing shot great with the right ammo and I sold it years latter after many years of great memories for hundreds more than what I paid for it.