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

[Greg L]

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

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.

 

[2400]

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.

 

[Steve F]

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

 

[jobu07]

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

+1 LOL

 

[SSN Vet]

when renting a house....

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....

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... I was excited to find a coffee can...with three $1 bills .....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.

 

[LiquidTension]

Cosmoline. Lots and lots of cosmoline.

 

[entropy]

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

 

[Fire4Effect]

I guess I'm off to tear apart some guns

 

[Big Larry]

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.

 

[Bridger]

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

 

[Manedwolf]

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?

 

[imas]

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

 

[bumm]

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

 

[Pork Fat]

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.

 

[petrel800]

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.

 

[bnelson2943]

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.