GunShow Observations
 

All,

Was at the Dale City, VA gun, crew-served knife, jerky, natsuke, fossils and beeanie-baby show today and happened upon a gentleman who had two Thai lugers, one a LP-08, and a fountain of misinformation. The pistols were doggy...the standard P-08 was in NRA terrible with less than 10% finish and uniform pin prick pitting at an asking price of $1100; the LP-08 was in better shape, mebbe 65% and not so many pits, but still pretty ratty and it was tagged at $3900.

The guy will die owning these guns unless the "Bigger Fool" Theory is really working....
Managed to score an unopened box of old red label Winchester 7.65 mm Ammo from about 1910 or o in exc (+) condition along with a bit of stomach upset from the lousy food.

I only hit this show every coupple of years because it is sooooo low end (A Lebel carbine here is considered something special). Mebbe I will increase the interval between visits.

Tom A.
Headed to . tomorrow to slay the great swine <img src="graemlins/drink.gif" border="0" alt="[cherrsagai]" />

Tom, Where in PA do you go for this great pig hunt?

com...never[/url] been here before but several of my buds who will be accompanying me say it's a bit of all right.

Waidsmansheil!

Tom A.

Tom, I hit the Dale City show once during the Christmas holidays while visiting my sister in Springfield, VA. I agree that the few collectibles that I saw were way overpriced. My buy of the show, were 108 GI "surplus" 30rd M16 mags @$2 each, from a young man with a crewcut (probably from Ft.Belvoir, just across I95). I wish I could find some more at that price. Tom H.

Here in Michigan there is a weekly newspaper called the "Auction News". It covers auctions throughout Michigan, and Northern Ohio and Indiana. Once, I hit on an excellent 1900 AE with Ideal stock, grips and holster. I paid $1600 and everybody told me to cancel the newspaper because I could never match that bargain again. I never cancelled that newspaper and I have three leads on some Lugers thanks to the last issue. My advice is to attend these little dinky shows. You only have to succeed once to be sucessful. You just never know when or where you will pick up something interesting. Of course, you have to be a big mouthed, friendly, outward sort of guy like me and be able to strike up a conversation with just about about anybody. People who have read my posts or emailed me know that I am a hard guy to shut up. I have been criticised a lot about my technique, but I have a fine collection of Lugers. So let them criticise.
Big Norm [img]wink.gif[/img]