Not having anyone much in your life that really gives a hoot about your collection complicates things a bit.
I think that's very true. As I've said many times before though (almost every time one of these types of threads shows up on THR),
having someone in your life (like my wife) who likes guns, hunting and shooting every bit as much as you do, complicates things too - and more than a "bit."
To complicate things even worse, my wife has as many guns as I do (maybe more) and some of them are of great sentimental value to her. Therefore, those guns have "great sentimental" value to me as well.
One example would be my wife's 6" Ruger "Super Blackhawk" .44 Mag. At one time, that revolver had a 10.5" barrel, and Ruger called it a "Super Silhouette" because with its 10.5" barrel, it was very good for tipping over distant steel silhouettes in IHMSA competitions. That's what my wife used it (and another 10.5" Super Silhouette just like it) for. She sold one of the 10.5" revolvers after we quit IHMSA (because we'd allowed competition shooting to become more like a job than a hobby) and shipped the other back to Ruger to have a more "practical" 6" barrel screwed on.
At any rate, I'd bet my wife hasn't put more than a two dozen rounds through that 6" Super "Silhouette" (or Super "Blackhawk") since we quit IHMSA, and that's been 40 years! She keeps it around for sentimental reasons - just like the shelf lined with trophies in the spare bedroom in the basement. My wife won those trophies by tipping over distant steel silhouettes with her "Ruger Super Silhouette" (and its twin brother) back in the early '80s.
At any rate, if my wife goes before me, I have no idea what I'm going to do with some of her guns, much less some of her trophies. For that matter, we each have a few "trophy" mule deer racks in the basement too.
I feel my wife would be in the same situation if I'm the one that goes first. I've told the story far too many times about how my wife fully approved of my ordering a custom-built .308 Norma Magnum rifle built as my retirement gift to myself when I turned 62. She
knew (because I told her) that I'd wanted a custom-built .308 Norma Magnum since I was 16, and my then-girlfriend's dad had one.
That girlfriend was gone before I was 17, but I've had my custom .308 Norma Magnum for 14 years now. And my gun loving wife has been with me since I was 23 - that's 53 years and counting!
