You call "yours" a collection?

[Baba Louie]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2007/sep/20/566611829.html

Jerry Darnell. Wow!

September 20, 2007

One man and his guns, guns and more guns

A collection built over a lifetime is going to the highest bidders
By Abigail Goldman, Las Vegas Sun
Las Vegas Sun


It's Christmas Day, Jerry Darnell is about to die and he's at Wal - Mart buying rifles. Four of them.

Darnell's cousin finds these firearms in early January, when he travels to Pahrump to make the after-death arrangements. Darnell had died of natural causes at 66.

His cousin finds the new rifles unwrapped, price tags affixed, packed in with the rest of the collection. A gun hoarder's last grasp, the end of the Darnell Weaponry Estate.

It's an arsenal, really, of about 3,800 firearms, more than 1,000 bayonets and about 250,000 rounds ammunition. The collection spans Civil War to Wal - Mart: Winchester, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Ruger, Mauser, Mosin Nagant. Weapons worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Some say it is one of the largest private gun collections in Nevada, assembled by a solitary man who lived a quiet life in Pahrump.

There's more in the link. Check out the photos.

 

[30 cal slob]

 

[The Viking]

There was a similar auction over here a few years back. One of the few big time gun collectors passed away, and his collection was sold. It included several automatic weapons, ranging from Swedish K SMG's to Glock 18 pistols. I don't know how many guns he had, and the police didn't know when they picked them up from his house either. They just weighed it. It was a few tons of them...

 

[Nil]

I don't think I'd ever want that many guns. I can't see owning a gun (besides maybe a few very collectible pieces) that I don't shoot on at least a semi-regular basis. And you can't really do that when you own thousands of firearms.

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

I wouldn't need it......But I'd sure as heck like to have it!!!

 

[Omaney]

This guy was a sick puppy. Hoarding behavior is loony. At least it wasn't cats or dogs. I get tired of reading about 100+ cats in some rathole of a house.

 

[ScottsGT]

You guys would have a fit if you were into reading the plastic modeling forums. Some of those guys have 4000+ kits stashed in their basement and attics. I build models as a stress relief hobby that I can do at home (wife told me no shooting in the house) and I was thinking I'm some kind of loon keeping just over 100 kits in my workshop. But I only have 25 firearms, so far........

 

[JKimball]

This guy was a sick puppy. Hoarding behavior is loony.

I have heard of a mental condition that causes people to just keep buying stuff that they never use. But this might also be seen as an investment strategy. Think how much just the ammo has increased in value. Plus his money is invested in something that can't just disappear as it might in a really bad doomsday scenario if it were in the stock market or even the bank. In that scenario, this collection would still be valuable for bartering.

Just a thought.

 

[Macpherson]

So what if he liked collecting guns? He quite clearly wasn't dangerous or threatening to anyone, he just happened to like collecting guns, like some people collect postage stamps, antique duck decoys or kerosene lanterns. He was exercising a right guaranteed by the 2nd amendment, and from what it sounds like he did it in a safe and orderly manner, so what's the big deal? I wish that I had the money and freedom to devote to pursue my interests like he did.

What I'm interested in is the 250,000 rounds of ammunition he had...there might be some deals to be had depending on the calibers

 

[Sharps-shooter]

A boy needs a hobby, right?

I'd love to have that many guns. Then i could invite my brothers and cousins out to the farmhouse and try them all out.

I too, don't want to have any guns that I can't shoot. Even the really collectible or valuable stuff. Even an old shotgun with damascus barrels. If I can't shoot it, it's not a gun.

 

[MrPeter]

Could you imagine cleaning those every other week?

They didn't mention how many tons of CLP that guy had left. He was probably always running low

 

[Baba Louie]

The online auction last week was proxibid http://www.proxibid.com/asp/AuctionsByCompany.asp?ahid=1734
But they don't show an upcoming auction this weekend, nor does the Las Vegas Review Journal have anything listed in their "Guns" section of the classifieds.

It's a sickness I tell ya. Thank goodness I'm a poor boy and can only afford one or two (dozen)?... and, as Tyler Burden says in the Fight Club, "your possessions own you". Obsessive Compulsive behaviour is... interesting and obviously, someone may benefit after the fact.

But seeing Mr. Darnell's collection does make me want to simplify my own on one hand, even as I called on an H&R Garand advertised way too low in the LV RJ classifieds this morning while looking for the ammo auction. (voice mail, no call back) Sick I say. In a good old American consumer sorta way.

As my dear old Daddy used to say, "Baba, you can never have too many, guns, knives or fishing poles. Just don't tell your Mom, she doesn't understand."

 

[30 cal slob]

are there guns in heaven?

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Plus his money is invested in something that can't just disappear as it might in a really bad doomsday scenario if it were in the stock market or even the bank. In that scenario, this collection would still be valuable for bartering.

Well, it can just disappear actually. If they were made illegal and the BATFE came and took them away. The only way around that would be to actually live up to the bluster and oppose them with real force, and even then, you would lose.

Gun collections as an investment are pretty good, but not invincible. A few strokes of President Obama's pen are all it would take to make them worth $0, and you a criminal.

 

[Sharps-shooter]

are there guns in heaven?

Yeah. Weapons have souls. they live because we, their owners, live. When they die, their spirits go on to the next world.

 

[Ian]

Way, waaaay too little ammo. He had a mere 65 rounds per gun!

 

[Baba Louie]

Way, waaaay too little ammo. He had a mere 65 rounds per gun!

Muahaha. Did you do that in your head Rain Man style or what? Talk about obsessive compulsive. "3 minutes to Wopner. Need more ammo. MORE AMMO!"
I feel bad cause I've only got a few measly thousand rounds of .223 and 7.62x39 left and I'm down to mere hundreds of .45 and 9mm and ammo is going up almost daily and here I am looking up and calling on an H&R Garand marked $400 in the classifieds. I'm sick I tell ya. (still going to voice mail, still no call back)

 

[Rembrandt]

Mindless trivia....

Lets' see.....to shoot each gun once a year, you would need to shoot 10.4 guns per day.

If "X" number of homes in America have a least one firearm....then this mans collection makes those statistics invalid.

 

[Seancass]

haha, rembrandt's right. this guys collection alone scews the figure by about a percent.

 

[Noxx]

A boy needs a hobby, right?

That pretty much covers men in a nutshell. We never grow up, we just get taller and our Lego's get more expensive.

 

[Black Adder LXX]

So is it too late to get written into the will???

 

[Gator]

This guy was a sick puppy. Hoarding behavior is loony.

Would you say that about a stamp collector, coin collector, Hummel collector? Well, OK, Hummel collectors are loony, but why put limits on a collection?

 

[birdv]

3,800 firearms / (66 - current age) = number of firearms I have to buy this year to be on track.

 

[Millwright]

'He who dies with the most toys wins....... >MW

 

[TheFringe]

If he had invested say $100,000 in the stock market or similar venture and ended up with several hundred thousand dollars worth of stock upon dying, they would label him a shrewd investor who left a bundle to his surviving family. Instead, his investment is called "hoarding behavior." Just his 250,000 rounds of ammo alone have probably doubled in value the last year.

I am a novice collector and also relatively new to guns.
My 'mentor' so to speak is a class III collector and long time friend of mine with many years of military and DOC experience. Over 35 years he has invested maybe $100,000 tops in acquiring some 300 weapons. Roughly 100 of these are NFA items that he purchased in the 70's and 80's before the Washington state ban on full-auto which prohibits me from acquiring similar guns today. This gentleman's collection now approaches $1,000,000 in value and is climbing daily. Not only does his collection include several .50 BMG belt-fed weapons, but also 3000 rounds of .50 BMG ammo purchased or loaded decades ago. Anyone checked the price of .50 BMG ammo lately ?

In the early days he pleaded with friends and co-workers like myself to acquire guns, especially NFA items. We all ignored his advice. Long before we met, he purchased a 1921 full-auto Colt Thompson 'Tommy Gun' from J. Curtis Earl himself. The year was 1971 and he paid a grand total of $650 ($3000 or so in today's money.) These Colt Thompsons now sell for $25,000 to $30,000.

The deceased individual may in fact have been obsessed and more than likely was not a serious collector. However many like my long-time friend have seen their armory out-perform the Stock Market and many other investment schemes including Real Estate.