If you had a time machine…?

[LiveLife]

LoL. That would nearly certainly make it a "one-way" trip, as the future you were "from" would likely not resemble your memory of it.

It could be a "better" future.

 

[Daveboone]

I think best use of my travel would be to go back to 1920 whatever Vienna, and get the admissions officer at Hitlers art school of choice to admit him.

 

[LiveLife]

I think best use of my travel would be to go back to 1920 whatever Vienna, and get the admissions officer at Hitlers art school of choice to admit him.

Could you edit your post to make it "firearm related"? TIA

If you had one trip in a time machine what firearm related thing would you do? <<Emphasis added by staff.>>

 

[theotherwaldo]

I wouldn't have much trouble getting enough period money. I know where Grandpa stashed his gold coins when FDR banned them. There were a lot of them (he and his brother owned an oil company at the time).
-And I have access to period clothing from my local museum... .

 

[MechAg94]

It's a notion. But, you'd be buying metal at today's rates to trade for paper at yesterday's. And you still have the onus to get minted specie with appropriate dates.
Which also gets you into various era where trade in metal might be legally complex.
Now, thinking about that, perhaps the dodge there would be to get foreign currency--Mexican pesos used to be in silver and gold, which might be the way to get "credit" in the past.

It would certainly take some research to know what sort of metals you could sell in the past, where you could sell them, and what condition they needed to be in. Would you need dated silver dollars or would simple 5 ounce bars work without arousing suspicion of some kind? Probably need to do the math to know that if you convert today's dollars into silver then into past dollars, then into whatever you want to buy, would the result be profit in today's dollars? I imagine a lot of guns don't increase in price enough to justify all that except some cheap (at the time) surplus guns or full auto guns.

And if you get a bunch of full auto guns in the 1920's, you might want to take a detour to the 1960's when the amnesty was going on and get them registered.

 

[CapnMac]

And, a time traveling photo:

Abilene, TX, 1911
Paper money would have been National Bank Notes; coinage would likely be a mix of US & Mexican coinage, especially the 50 peso coins, about 1 ounce of 16kt gold; the silver 1 pesos as well.

 

[ACES&8S]

Go back with half my money & buy all the Garands,1903 springfields, and pythons I could get back
with.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

Could you edit your post to make it "firearm related"? TIA

​

Getting Hitler into art school might prevent the use of millions of firearms all over the globe and, possibly, the creation of an atomic weapon. There. Fixed it for ya. Firearm related.

 

[thunderbyrd]

i would go back to 1959 and buy every gibson les paul i could lay my hands on. then, back in present time, i could buy every gun i want.

 

[Ranger Rog]

[
QUOTE="aarondhgraham, post: 12047219, member: 193201"]I would go back to the Constitutional Convention,,,
Make sure they improved on the wording of the 2nd Amendment.

Aarond

.[/QUOTE]
"SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" is pretty f@$%^&/ clear......its held up pretty up and walking good!

 

[GEM]

Ladies and Gents - there is something of greater interest to me than changing "gun history" or anything in the last 200-300 years.
Given the use of a time machine, the most compelling question I would want answered would require my going back to the Middle East of about 2,000 years ago - to see for myself.

You need to read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behold_the_Man_(novel)

To the original post, there are better investments. The problem is bringing enough usable money or valuables. If I were free to go back to anytime in the 20 th century. I would take some old silver coins and buy the first Superman, DC, Batman, etc. comics. I would also get uncirculated rolls of rare coins, such as 1916-D dimes or the like. 1909 S -VDB pennies, etc. With those now, I could buy any gun I wanted.

 

[Demi-human]

Ugh. Time Travel gives me a head ache.
(I had that typed but not posted for a few days, now I’m back. TaaDaa! Time travel!)

If I was morally at ease with possibly destroying the “correct timeline” by traveling at all, I suppose I’d be okay with my arrival being conveniently located inside a rather rudimentary bank vault…

Since the “time machine” is actually moving a body through Time-Space, not just Time, it would be of no real consequence to place myself inside the vault at arrival.
Then “procure” as much federally insured proceeds as required to acquire legal firearms for the return jump.
This would be handy for buying what things one desired in person. As over time examples are lost.
A hands on perusal and procurement process, a firearms buying vacation!

Not withstanding that the same Ill-begotten funds could be invested like, @LiveLife said, in known successful funds, netting a much higher gain in the “correct timeline”. Which can also help with other aspects of lifestyle decisions.

But this takes the chance that some firearms may be lost to antiquity, no amount of money can buy them.
Though I may be satiated by the owning of several private shooting ranches scattered about the world, stocked with incredibly expensive bespoke, though maybe not famously known, firearms.

 

[D.B. Cooper]

[/QUOTE]"SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" is pretty f@$%^&/ clear......its held up pretty up and walking good![/QUOTE]

If that were true, there would be no need for an NRA, GOA, FPC, etc etc.

I'm with Aarond on this one. Go back and help rewrite the 2nd Amendment in such a way that it could not be circumvented, violated, or abused in the current manner.

 

[Jim Watson]

Heinlein had a vignette, hardly a story, about an equal rights amendment..
With clauses amounting to "Quacks like a duck." and "This time we mean it."

 

[Dr.Rob]

Complete my Colt collection with full autos from Thompson, BAR to XM177 or so, a couple Fitz'es. Invest in Apple, Microsoft and other tech stocks, buy a bunker to haord my proceeds.

(Hope none of us takes COVID back with them)

 

[GEM]

You have to go back and make sure that your machine takes into account movement or you will floating around in space, between star systems or in a sun, black hole, stuck in a celestial body.

If I could rewrite the Constitution, I would abolish slavery but we digress from the charge of the OP. The best thing is to check auction catalogs of the time and now for the best gun increasing in value. See if you could afford it then with what you could take back in value.

 

[theotherwaldo]

Check out Roger Zelazny's "Roadmarks", a time-travel tale about moving valuable cargoes (and other things) between eras.
Coming soon to HBO... .

 

[Pat Riot]

I would find a way to fund the purchase of approximately 25 Colt Combat Government Series 70 1911s and a dozen Gold Cups at B&B Sales in North Hollywood, CA in March 1983 when they were all on sale for $317 each. I know they had this amount because I asked the day I bought my Combat Gov’t.

My one big problem would be where to store them so that I could retrieve them when I got back to now.

 

[DM~]

I'd only have to go back a few years, and get the winning LOTO numbers for a couple MAJOR pots of $...

DM

 

[Hugger-4641]

I'd go back to the day my grandad passed and get his W.C.F 30-30, Stevens .25 rimfire, Winchester model 62, A5 12ga, and S&W 686 SS .357. All of them were taken by uncles who no longer have any of them.

 

[AK Hunter]

If I had a time machine I would go back in time when the AK & other gun kits were about $50 & buy many warehouses full of them.
Back then some cheaper kits were being given away, like buy two get a cheap kit for free.

 

[.308 Norma]

I'd only have to go back a few years,

Man, you don't even need "a few years" worth of time machine travel for that. The Powerball jackpot was about 400 million just a few days ago - or so I heard.

 

[Ignition Override]

The Last Outlaw: True (I forgot how to correctly“quote”).

And had Custer not rubbed so Many people the wrong way,

…Major Reno might have been willing to bring his forces early, to help Custer.

 

[Cowhide Cliff]

Go back to the late 1870s. 1873 Winchesters, 1876 Winchesters, SAA Colts, would all be new and I'd try to gather a passel of them.

 

[Tommygunn]

The Last Outlaw: True (I forgot how to correctly“quote”).

And had Custer not rubbed so Many people the wrong way,

…Major Reno might have been willing to bring his forces early, to help Custer.

Major Reno was never in a position to bring his forces to support Custer, due mostly to his own ineptitude and being routed back across the Little Bighorn River by the Indian warriors.