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Lately I've been doing a lot of cleaning out and getting rid of stuff. It involves moving things around, consolidating, sorting, etc. Tonight I was working in my library, sorting through things. For many years, I've wanted to organize my books by subject matter. I'm finally doing it. It's quite a job when hundreds of books are involved. However, I started out with a culling process and reduced the mass which makes it a bit easier.

Anyway, I had a brown cardboard box with paper documents from all the guns I've sold over the years. That would be since 1965. It was wasting space on a book shelf so it had to be moved. I took the sheaves of paper out of the box and in so doing, some old price tags fell out. They were, quite at random:

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I bought the Luger when I was 17 years old. There was a guy in my home town who had a half-assed war relics swap shop. You could say he was an unlicensed gun dealer. If a person had the cash, they could buy any gun he had on offer. $65 was quite a little wad of money for a 17 year old in 1967.

The Winchester Model 88, I think I bought that one in the early 1980's. Strangely enough, it was a surplus police gun. It was used for a while by the SWAT team of a local PD. Note the tag says, "no mag." Anyone who has knowledge of these rifles knows these days that's a major defect, since Model 88 magazines are like gold. They weren't that expensive in the 1980's but they weren't being given away, either. I suspect that quite a few of them got lost over the years.

By weird coincidence, many years later I bought another Win. Model 88 and it also came from police auction. This one had been seized as evidence in a crime. Have you ever watched Perry Mason on TV, the part in the courtroom where Lieutenant Tragg is on the witness stand, a firearm is in evidence, and he is asked if this is the gun in question? He stipulates that it is, and says, "That's my mark on it." Well, this second Mod. 88 had a detective's mark on the stock, along with dried blood and flecks of tissue, circled in black Magic Marker. Something was buggered up inside that I had to repair but it turned out to be a decent rifle.
 
The unlicensed gun dealer, some friends of mine and I later bought a Russian 50mm mortar (1941) and a German Panzerschreck (like a bazooka). To this day, I don't know that having these is illegal so long as you don't have the ammo. And good luck finding any. But if you do, each round is a destructive device and those are illegal. We knew people who owned unregistered but Dewat MG's, like a WW2 Thompson and a German MP44. These have a kinda weird history as to legality of possession. But I think at present, it's not legal to own one that isn't registered. But I could be wrong about this.
 
Nostalgia is cool. But . . . . . it's kinda like thinkin' about that girl xx years ago. You know the one I mean, occasionally pops up in a dream. She a'int there nor the same, and neither are those guns. They both are beautiful and they both are gone. It's time and it's a killer.
 
I remember when the minimum wage was at $2.35 an hour.... :s0112:
Don't remind me, I have to kick myself a few more times:confused:
When turned 18 I was at the door bags packed, with "you can't tell me anything anymore". Had a job with County made Min wage, was IIRC $1.65 Hr. Grand dad, who I never knew what he did before retiring, doing things like owning a bar, turns out he was Machinists. He had an apartment in his basement he set up to make a few bucks. Takes me down shows me wood crates full of tools, that at the time I had no clue what they were. Offers to send me to school, free, 5 year course at that time. Tells me I can live there in apartment free. Will just need part time job to have walking around money. When done I can have the tools. Want to guess my response?:mad::mad::mad::mad:
"I am done with school, I have a job, I have a place to live, I can do what I want now. " I had the world by the tail:s0140:
Couple decades later I get my foot in the door working at a Machine shop. Got to again make min wage, while I did on the job training in a trade I found I liked. I soon remembered all those tools and now knew not only what they were for but how much they cost to buy:s0054::s0054::s0054::s0054:.
Young, dumb, full of......... well you all know the rest of this line. Often wondered if Grandfather was watching from above and laughing at me:D
 
Don't remind me, I have to kick myself a few more times:confused:
When turned 18 I was at the door bags packed, with "you can't tell me anything anymore". Had a job with County made Min wage, was IIRC $1.65 Hr. Grand dad, who I never knew what he did before retiring, doing things like owning a bar, turns out he was Machinists. He had an apartment in his basement he set up to make a few bucks. Takes me down shows me wood crates full of tools, that at the time I had no clue what they were. Offers to send me to school, free, 5 year course at that time. Tells me I can live there in apartment free. Will just need part time job to have walking around money. When done I can have the tools. Want to guess my response?:mad::mad::mad::mad:
"I am done with school, I have a job, I have a place to live, I can do what I want now. " I had the world by the tail:s0140:
Couple decades later I get my foot in the door working at a Machine shop. Got to again make min wage, while I did on the job training in a trade I found I liked. I soon remembered all those tools and now knew not only what they were for but how much they cost to buy:s0054::s0054::s0054::s0054:.
Young, dumb, full of......... well you all know the rest of this line. Often wondered if Grandfather was watching from above and laughing at me:D

Of COURSE he was laughing at you..... HELL, I'm laughing at you! :s0140:

;):D



BTW, My story is similar.... my dad always wanted me to get into the electrical trade, or refrigeration. After a long tortured path of Army service, a stint at semi-skilled production work at the Oregonian (remember when they were a thing? LOL), and a year as a lumber jack after that..... I'm now 30 years into a career of industrial refrigeration, general HVAC, and boilers (small stuff to the "big boy" power boilers), and I hold (and maintain) two trade licenses.

That's the thing about human nature, one has to make an idea "their own" in order to accept it. Glad I learned that lesson before I had kids and never had to "butt heads" with any of them.
 
Does this count?
Found with many IMR cans in an old side clamp 50 cal can near my dads reloading bench.
I don't know which price is true, but an old receipt it is, and I feel like I wish I had more for any of the prices shown.

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And they STILL took taxes out of it! Geeze...
One Daughter who was SUPER liberal, had friend who lived totally at our expense. Rent, food, the works. Because she had a kid and was "disabled" by being a drug addict. Daughter could never understand why this pissed us off till she went to work full time. Had been working 16 hours a week, min wage. Turned 18 I got her a good job making twice min. So first 2 week check is coming she is thinking she is going to be in fat city. Comes running to me with pay stub, WTF!! Why did they take all this money? I said welcome to the working world. They have to take that to support your friend who can't hold a job but knows how to have kids. It did not turn her into a Right Winger like me but it did knock those rose glasses off her face :s0140:
 
Shoot...
I'm getting price tag nostalgia from ammo I purchased eight or nine months ago...

"Sonny, I remember them old days of 2019 like it was yesterday; when ammo was less than $1.00 per round, and parts were cheap. When you could build an AR for less than $400 and shoot it on the weekend for less than a mortgage payment..."
 
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One Daughter who was SUPER liberal, had friend who lived totally at our expense. Rent, food, the works. Because she had a kid and was "disabled" by being a drug addict. Daughter could never understand why this pissed us off till she went to work full time. Had been working 16 hours a week, min wage. Turned 18 I got her a good job making twice min. So first 2 week check is coming she is thinking she is going to be in fat city. Comes running to me with pay stub, WTF!! Why did they take all this money? I said welcome to the working world. They have to take that to support your friend who can't hold a job but knows how to have kids. It did not turn her into a Right Winger like me but it did knock those rose glasses off her face :s0140:

It's called reality. Unfortunately many just don't get it.
 

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