It's been a hell of a week!, er WEEKS, MONTHS! VERY OT

[Doc Shipley]

Jim Leonard wrote:

> Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
> 
>> That's sort of like asking why someone would own so many old computers.
> 
> 
> A better-worded version of my question is "What is appealing about 
> collecting guns?"  I'm not passing judgement, just trying to understand.

   I would give a variant of the same answer.  I collect both, as I 
think a lot of us on this list do, and for a lot of the same reasons.

   It's rare,

   I shot this model as a kid,

   It's aesthetically pleasing,

   It is/was very powerful for its era,

   It's representative of a design breakthrough or an off-the-wall 
design concept.[0]

   Or, the all-encompassing and overriding: I wanted it.

   I can't for my life understand why people collect stamps or coins. 
They don't *do* anything.  But they do, so I guess one man's boring is 
another's excitement.


	Doc


[0]  I have one revolver - a Model 1895 Nagant - that fires a cartridge 
longer than the cylinder itself.  The slug sits so far back in the brass 
as to be almost invisible.  Why?  When the gun is cocked and fired, the 
cylinder is moved forward before the round fires, the lip of the 
carridge extends into the barrel itself, and makes a gas seal.  It's one 
of VERY few revolvers that don't leak at the cylinder/barrel interface. 
  Because of that, it's also one of the few revolvers that can be 
effectively silenced.