For me it started without any gun influences from my dad. He wasn't antigun at all, and had owned guns when he was younger, but he grew up in a pretty remote area and said he never saw another hunter when he was young. After moving to the "big city" in the mid 1920's he said when he went hunting he couldn't hardly find a place that he didn't run into other hunters, so he sold his guns and stopped hunting.
My brothers and I grew up hearing hunting stories from my dad and uncles, and my dad's brothers still owned guns and hunted. When we visited we always got a gun out and I couldn't wait to try to shoot whatever they had! As I got to maybe 10 yrs. old my friends and I would ride our bikes to a local army surplus store, and they had barrels of junk guns for $2-$4 each. None of them working, and most missing parts, but we could afford them, and being non working they sold us guns to play with. We used them to play army around our neighborhood, and we gradually bought missing parts from the same store to make them appear complete.
I bought my first real firearm in 1968 just before the GCA of '68 came in. I'd heard it was coming, so when I turned 18 I quickly made my first real purchase. After that every dime I could save was used to buy whatever guns I saw used in local ads and added to my meager collection. I stopped buying in '69 when I got drafted, but when I came home and went back to work I started back up again.
I've been buying collectible firearms ever since, but never buy any military guns. Just too many people to compete with as the military collectors are a huge crowd, so I target 1800's single shot cartridge rifles. I specialize even further by mostly collecting Marlin Ballard and Remington single shot rifles. I love collecting, shooting, making ammo for rare cartridges, and collecting all the tools and accessories those old rifles were sold with back in the 1800's. I also collect early American target scopes, and many of my old guns are equipped with those great old scopes.
