Portland, Oregon gun show
 

Gun show weekend at the Expo Center. The Portland gun show continues to fall on hard times, show has moved to the oldest building in the exhibition complex--smaller, poor environmental control, bad floor. Many of the usual table-holders were not there.


A few Lugers, some we've seen before.


The tail-end of Jerry Kramer's collection--
Portuguese M2 $2695
Mauser Banner Swiss Commercial $3695
1920 Commercial Artillery (c/N proof) $2795
Pacific Arms blank toggle, 7" barrel $2795
Mauser Interarms cutaway $2995
Swiss Berne 1929 $?
Portuguese holster $175
converted Artillery holster $150

1917 DWM mismatched Police Luger for shooting $500
1937 S/42 reblue, rebarrel Luger for shooting $700

1916 DWM $450

1938 S/42 Kriegsmarine walk-in, trolling for evaluation

Some Lugers came out of the woodwork for show-and-tell (not for sale)--
1918 LP-08 with no proofs
Blank-chamber Simson
1923 (five-digit serial#) commercial American Eagle

Most noteworthy gun of the show (aside from a Langenhan)--
1922 DWM .32 pocket auto copy of the 1910 FN Browning.

--Dwight

I agree with Dwight. The Portland show is getting to be very poor as far as Lugers go. I only saw two Astra's. One was a 1916 and the other was a very poor 600 that was grossly overpriced for the condition. No blue poor metal surface and replaced grips.

The only bright spot was that I was with a friend who had not beed to a show for a number of years. He especially noticed the number of M-1 Garands (he carried one in Korea).

I missed crossing paths with Dwight.

Steve

I have given up on the Portland Expo Gun Show. The show continues it's down hill slide show after show. My hope at this point is that another promoter will buy out the show and make it a gun show again. The last few shows that I attended looked more like a flea market. I can remember when the show was going strong and grew from 1,000 tables to 1,200 tables of guns and accessories.

There is a bright side to the failing Portland Expo Show, I now have more money for the great Reno Show. My reservations are made for April!

Scott

Another promoter did buy the show, its now owned and operated by the same folks who do the Collectors West circuit. Common comment among table-holders is that there are too many Portland Expo shows (9 or so a year), that quality, quantity and interest would increase if there were only four or so shows a year. Fat chance of that happening.

--Dwight

Dwight, I did know that Collectors West bought out the Expo show. Shortly after they bought it I noticed that the show went further down hill. In the past I have written email to the woman in charge at Collectors West (Marla) suggesting changes that would improve the overall quality of the show. I never received a response back. You are very correct about there being too many Expo shows. In December of last year I looked at their 2005 show calendar and I was shocked at how many three day Expo shows that there are this year. A few quality shows would be better than what we have now. I keep hoping someone like Lou Fascio of the Reno show will pick up our failing Expo shows. Portland just deserves better than what we have.

Scott