Borchardts go with Steampunk
 

Nice antiques and nice guns, overall pretty cool :)

:thumbup:Watta hoot!!! Love what you have done with the house! Still hope to get there someday.

The title of this post and some of the comments seem "off" to me.

Steampunk is a subculture genre that combines a Victorian look with high tech, as if power sources has proceeded along the lines of steam, or perhaps Tesla.
It is imaginative, beautiful and at times very science fiction.
Think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, or the most recent well publicized ripoff of it, the remake of the move "The Wild Wild West".
Steampunk has been around for years, and has very little to do with punk, and a whole lot to do with steam.
The genre has attracted folks of all ages, even some of us old fogies, (as we can afford the best toys). :)
Look it up on Wikipedia if you still have no clue what I'm talking about. :)
http://tinypic.com/usermedia.php?uo=...GBrIh4l5k2TGxc

Or "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"...which was a dud, but has some interesting Steampunk ideas... :)

Yes, I love that decor also...especially the Doggerman... :D

By gosh, Postino, you get it!!
Thanks to all for the kind comments and even thanks for the befuddled one.
Y'all are great, and I might post more later that show the guns to better advantage.
BTW, the Borchardt and the 02 Carbine were the ones I chose to play with in these shots.
Don't have to shoot em to have some fun with em, guys!!!

Yes! Fondling can be more satisfying than shooting...the heavy weight, the smooth cool steel, the heft in your hand, the satiny functioning as you rack the action, the click/snick as it cycles... :cheers:

...Did I say that out loud???... :eek: :D

Heck darlin, a good Luger is better than sex.
(did I say THAT out loud?)
*grin*

I can get behind some of the steampunk popularity, and the Borchardt fits right in....richly polished wood, lush tapestries, finely machined mechanisms.....my question is, where does AC/DC enter the picture?:rockon:

Oh, I just have very eclectic musical tastes, lol, and it all fits my house and personality perfectly.
I *love* the bagpipes in that AC/DC song in my sig line, and as I was an entertainer for about 20 years, it has meaning to me.
I love Beethoven and Paul Kantner too, but Abney Park is my favorite. :)
Got a Steampunk pic with the 02 Luger Carbine too, if you want to see?
http://oi54.tinypic.com/2rf7mns.jpg

Steampunk Understood
 

Steampunk ties my interest in antiques and fireams together. Thank you for putting a label on a concept that I have enjoyed since first reading Jule Vern's works.

Hey Star, when are you going to show some pictures of your Hanna Reitsch Museum Room and the room dedicated to Belly Dancers? :D

Left the 20 year long belly dance occupation behind in Denver when I retired from it 13 years ago, Frank.
And since the stroke, I am wheelchair bound, but working hard on recovery.
The Hanna Reitsch stuff and the militaria collection is safely stored here in the mansion.
Thanks for asking. :cheers:

Wonderful pictures, Star. Glad to see you still have your Borchardt. (I thought at one time you were going sell it.)

I would still consider a good offer on it, but it is happy here, so it has stayed.
Thanks for the kind words on the pics, just ignore the old lady playing dress up, and enjoy the guns and ambiance. :cool:
Fritz the Dog sends his greetings as well.

A friend of mine who lives in Missouri has a model of a steam powered tractor. Since I thought it was very interesting, I asked her if we could fire it up and see what it would do. She said "Okay"; however she had never personally started the thing up. It used some kind of fuel pellets and I just assumed that we would need quite a few in order to get the steam pressure up to the actual operating level. So I put quite a few of them in the furnace, or whatever that part on a steam engine is called. It sat on her kitchen floor for quite awhile and then gradually started to sputter and hiss. I had the steering wheel set so that it would run in a big circle. And eventually it was running around in this big circle on the floor just fine. But it kept running faster and faster, and she did not know how to turn it off. Eventually we both realized that unless we did something, it was going to fly off and run into a wall or break something. Quick thinking lad that I am, I just assumed I could grab it as it ran by me, and lift it up from the floor, and just let its wheels spin until it ran out of steam. Initially, this did work; however, as it continued to run faster and faster while I was holding it, it blew one end of the boiler off and splattered black soot and crud all over my face. Fortunately I was not hurt, but I looked pretty ridiculous and it was quite a while before we could both stop laughing. I did send her steam engine back to the factory and they did repair the boiler. And I never started that thing up again. That was my first and last experience with steam power. I'm not sure if this qualifies as "steampunk" but I certainly did look like a "steam punk."

Wow! What an experience!
Steam power can be quite deadly.

A lot of NYC modern skyscrapers are still heated from a central city steam boiler system that runs at 3200psi, although it gets stepped down in stages before it is used in the buildings.
Every once in a while though, a major full pressure steam line blows out under the streets there, and it is impressively catastrophic.

The old steam locomotives were horribly dangerous as well, due to potential explosions.

Sounds like you had tons of fun, but narrowly escaped some possibly very bad injuries or scalding.

Much like our manned space program, the steam pioneers were very courageous, and risked dreadful deaths to bring progress to humanity.

One of the steam punks of his generation, an American inventor who had also dabbled with machine guns and who developed some sort of repeating mechanism that also found it's way into a type of pistol some people like, decided to look into the challenge of manned flight and he set out to do the ground work for a heavier than air flying machine, powered by a very efficient and light set of steam engines.

He reached his goal, his flying machine took off, but in a controlled environment powered by those 2 steam engines. All this quite a few years before the Wright brothers came up with their solution.

One of the steam engines survived and is still on display somewhere in the UK. The other steam engine is, well not entirely missing as we know where it was, but out of reach nonetheless. In 1912 it was shipped to the US, in a steam liner called the Titanic.

The inventor was Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim.

Thanks Vlim, I had no idea!
Fascinating!

I kept an old framed print of Hiram Maxim on the back parlor wall for years, btw, just so I could tell visitors about the internal toggle action on his guns. :evilgrin:

That's cool! I thought there was a different angle to this sort of thing, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now I know the saying for it too.

Wonder where "steampunk" actually derived from. Nice Luger carbine too!

Thanks Minigun, I love that old Carbine.

From what I can gather, the Goth movement got terribly bored with itself and wanted something more technological and interesting to do about 10-15 years ago.
They also attracted a much wider range and more well-read age groups with the changes.

It was suddenly no longer just rebellious kids, but the full age spread of folks wanting personalized expression in a society that had started to become more uniform, faceless and standardized.

The Edwardian/Victorian folks went with Steampunk, and the more modern, (1920s-1950s) group went Dieselpunk.

There is very little "punk" in either group, except for some exotic birdlike hairstyles amongst the West Coast musicians.
And that is all I could find out about the term.

But Jules Verne and H.G. Wells had been writing about this genre over a century ago, so there has always been a certain interest generated by the ideas.

Judging by the Youtube hits, (lots and lots), this is also a subculture happening in Europe and Russia, so it seems to appeal to a rather diverse group of very imaginative and creative intellectual rebels.

It is what YOU want to make of it, no particular defined rules or costuming fads, just lots of different approaches to alternative could-have-beens of science, music, costuming and art.

Almost all of it is hand and homemade, luckily it hasn't appeared in retail outlets yet, *giggle*.
The Real Thing will still show as drastically different though, even if it does start being commercialized.
Mass production can never duplicate unique personalized expression.

Here are some wonderful lyrics that kind of sum it up:

Throw Them Overboard by Abney Park

If you map out my psychology
It will look like archaeology
I've got no love for this society
I prefer total free autonomy!

Take your newfangled this and your newfangled that
And you can line them up and throw them overboard!
Your newfangled this and your newfangled that
And you can line them up and throw them overboard!

We've made an art of this horology
To the point of a new theology
I say to hell with modern technology
And we embrace analog mythology!

Take your newfangled this and your newfangled that
And you can line them up and throw them overboard!
Your newfangled this and your newfangled that
And you can line them up and throw them overboard!

This society's technology
Is an aesthetic anthropophagy
To survive this cultural urology
You have to study alcohology

Or take your newfangled this and your newfangled that
And you can line them up and throw them overboard!
Your newfangled this and your newfangled that
And you can line them up and throw them overboard!

:cheers:

[The Hanna Reitsch stuff and the militaria collection is safely stored here in the mansion.

When are you going to give us treat and show us that stuff please?
Alf.:)

Well, small problem, vault storage is 2nd floor in converted ballroom, and since the stroke in April, I cannot make the 26 step stairway, and not sure husband would be willing to hunt for it for me, after all the "fetch Lugers" errands I have already put him through.

All I have on the hard drive is some of the tinnies and a few badges and patches... none of the uniforms, flags, shooting awards, daggers or the desktop eagle.

I shot these pics back in 97, so even these cases are just a fraction of what the collection grew into. So, sorry, but here's a tiny few.

Disclaimer: this collection is not a political statement, just historical artifacts.

http://i54.tinypic.com/2drb5m0.jpg
http://i55.tinypic.com/29mvalf.jpg
http://i55.tinypic.com/2q18kur.jpg

Found a pic of the desk eagle:
http://i56.tinypic.com/29vgg0l.jpg

...and the paratrooper badge:
http://i55.tinypic.com/sex0s2.jpg

I keep looking for the absinthe fountain in those first pics.
Lovely sense of style.

I don't think we can have "real" absinthe, containing artemesia, here in the States, but I heard it can be had in Eastern Europe somewhere.
Wouldn't that be fun?
Yes, I agree, the Green Goddess sure would fit right in.
Or was that the Green Fairy? I forget.

Thank you StarOfTheWest, We hope that some day, when you get better we will have the privelage to see the rest.:)
Alf.

"Yes, I agree, the Green Goddess sure would fit right in.
Or was that the Green Fairy? I forget."

Green Fairy. :cheers:
Alf.

That's cool stuff. If you've said in the past, I'm sorry I've missed it, but do you or are you collecting this stuff? And, have you visited the P.38 forum? That's where I'm mostly at these days.

It seems that I remember that you were appraising the carbine and Borchardt? I can't totally recall what was going on.....it's been a while.

A board member was kind enough to come out here and appraise the entire Luger collection a few years back, and brought his friend who did the same for all the holsters. That might be what you are thinking of.

When the collection first became mine, I was posting lots of photos of the more interesting pieces here, but my photo expert friend is not in the same town anymore, so there are many that never were shown here.

No, I don't frequent the P38 Forum, as I only have 3 of those, a byf, a cyq, and an ac. No, I don't remember the years, just wanted a minty one of each. I have exchanged emails with and have a huge respect for Orv Reichert though, is he still around?

I had briefly entertained the idea of selling the Borchardt, but caught some flak for wanting only a face to face cash deal, so just kept it.

I used to collect a lot of German WW2 militaria, but have focused more on my Lugers over the last few years.
In fact, for the CO Front Range folks, you probably have met me pre-2002 at the gun shows back then.
Was quite a regular and set up often at the Tanner and the Crossroads Shows. PM me if you think you know me, CO folks. :)

Lugers, antiques, and Steampunk catch my interest more these days.

Yep, Orv is still around. Hopefully your P.38's serial numbers went into his data base. We try and collect this information for him and he has a huge list that he's compiled of them with descriptions and such.

Noth'in wrong with wanting a face-to-face deal in my opinion. Since you caught flak for it, I don't wanna go any further.

Did you ever attend the Dallas Market Hall gunshows? I've attended these since the early '90's. If you have, maybe I have run into you.

I sorta remember the pics of the rarer Lugers that you were posting a while back.

Back on subject; I was asking a few of the people I work with if they had ever heard of "steam punk". Loa and behold, they had! Where the heck have I been?

Next time I have husband dig guns out, I will grab that info for Orv.
He is a great guy.

Nope, we are 3 hours east of Dallas, and I am pretty freaked out by the traffic there. Husband is fearless, and would love to go to Market Hall someday, but our biz is busiest on weekends here, so we have yet to make it in for one.

Would love to meet you someday, if you ever find yourself almost to Shreveport, you will be very close to here.
You are always welcome to come by, just drop me a PM for contact details if you will be heading our way.

Steampunk is pretty amazing, and has managed to combine a lot of my interests into one genre.
I want our town to go with a Steampunk theme for next year's Mardi Gras festival. I think it would be a great draw, and something very new. We are trying to build tourism here, as this is a very historic town, of enough size to really boom. Good news that Dallas knows about Steampunk too, as some Shreveport guests knew of it as well. I am guessing more people in TX are aware of it than we think.

great pics
 

I love your guns, my wife loves your other "stuff" and we both love your dog with the "Devil Eyes"..

Check out the 1933 Besler steam powered airplane on youtube!!

Here's to a quick recovery--:cheers: :thumbup:

Thank you so much, Ida-Alp!
Greetings to your wife as well!
I will definitely check out that steam plane.
Fritz the Dog says "hi". :bigbye:

Here is a link where the best of the Steampunk bands talks about their origin and the Edison Theater venue.
Pretty cool theater!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXtEVaTr6F0

Hey Darlin, let me know when you want to part ways with some of your collection. One of my favorite places to visit is Jefferson, I'm also into the War between the states, Jefferson was a mustering out town for the Texacans heading off to the war. There was a textile plant there that made uniforms for the Confederates, a fun place to visit, with a lot of history.

Harry

I am 15 minutes from Jefferson. :)

First Monday at Canton, a lot of fun.

Harry

Have never made it there yet, was always working way too hard to take the time to go shop.
But I hear it is wonderful.

I must admitt.. I had no idea what steampunk was until I saw this thread.

For those interested in such, I guess this link would be worth a click :)
http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=446857