Category: The Gun Thing

Here’s something from Collectors which may seem to carry too high a price (even for them), but really isn’t:  3-Gun Set Belonging to Col. S.B. Sightler ($17,500).

Now I have no idea who the late Colonel Sightler is, or how much his personal collection may be valued by a collector.  What I do know is that the collection is as follows:

Parker DHE side-by-side 20ga shotgun:
(not the actual gun, but a representative sample thereof)

Underwood M1 Carbine:

And Winchester 62A pump-action .22 rifle:

Now here’s my point.  Each of the above guns is, by itself, supremely droolworthy.  And their average sale prices, individually, reflect that.  Depending on condition, a Parker DHE 20ga typically runs about $10,000-$14,000 (I’ve seen higher);  Underwood M1 carbines can fetch $1,500-$1,600;  and a Winchester 62A about $1,200-$1,500.

Adding that up, it comes to around sixteen grand for the three guns, if bought individually.  In that light, the $17,500 that Collectors is asking for the collection doesn’t seem that extreme — even allowing for their normal (inflated) markup.

And one last thing.  Given that these guns were owned by an ex-military man, I’m willing to bet that all three guns — even the little Winchester gallery gun — are in fine condition, which makes them a safe purchase.

If I were a collector and in the market for some decent guns, I’d be sorely tempted.  The provenance is just a bonus.

From Collectors comes this little peach:

Okay, here’s my take on this classic.

The Walther PP / PPK models are quite possibly the sexiest-looking pistols ever made*.  Those sleek lines and usually-faultless operation make for a tempting package — on the surface — and as James Bond’s gun, it works.

Unfortunately, Reality intrudes.  The .32 / .380 ACP (7.65mm / 9x17mm in Eurospeak) Browning cartridges are not serious self-defense options, and unfortunately I find that shooting the “more powerful” 9mm Parabellum (9x19mm) to be rather unpleasant in the small PP frame.  (My opinion;  yours may vary.)

One would think that it would be fun shooting the smaller .32 ACP cartridge in the PP (as it is with the Colt 1905, for example), but it isn’t — at least, not for someone with large or beefy hands such as mine.

The last time I fired a PP pistol, I became aware of some wetness in my grip, discovered that the sharp edges of the PP’s slide had made two razor-like cuts in the web of my hand, and I was bleeding like a stuck pig.  Painful, and a pain in the ass to clean up (which one has to do immediately, because blood does ugly things to a gun’s bluing).

My shooting companion — the owner of the PP — was a slender woman who had small ladylike hands, and who had therefore never been cut by the recoiling slide.  She loved shooting her little “purse gun”, as she called it, and was horrified that it had wounded me.

So as pretty and sexy as the Walther PP and PPK pistols are, there is a public health warning attached to them.

All that said:  I’d get the above pistol in a heartbeat, because it’s beautiful and sexy.  But I wouldn’t shoot it that much, unless wearing a shooting glove.

*with the possible exception of the Beretta 70-series .22 pistols.