Folks I've Met

[calibrator]

The recent post about Ralph Shattuck got me thinking about ALL the interesting old-time gunners I've met in the last handful of years. I met Ralph 2 years before his death when I found out that the "World Of Lugers" was only 10 miles from my front door. A chance phone call one Saturday morning got an invite for my wife and I to meet Ralph a few hours later at his home. He truly was a gentleman and very hospitable, he loved to tell us stories. If we had nothing else to do we would call Ralph on a Saturday AM to see if he wanted a little company so we could play with Lugers, usually he would. I will share one now. Someone posted that Ralph was a collector before he was a dealer, if so, he was collecting while still in grade school. As a teenager he developed a network of contacts while riding his bicycle around the neighborhoods. He used his seed money to purchase firearms that he was able to resell for profit (during the Great Depression era I think). As time went on, people would seek him out when they needed to sell. His volume steadily increased. He later developed a contact that would fly in to the local airport to meet him when he accumulated enough inventory. He would pedal his bike there all loaded down, must have been a sight. He still had the first Luger he ever owned, a nice looking 1920 Alphabet Comm. Another interesting guy I met is Eric Lufty. He is the owner of Thunderbird Cartridge Co. here in South Phx. Some of the cool stories he tells are about the "Good Old Days" when as a young guy he would drive to Cali to purchase quantities of Mil-Surp weapons on MANY occassions. He would pack SO MANY rifles into the back of his VW that the bumper would drag. He tells about buying Lugers by the barrel-full (literally). Think I recall him saying that they averaged about $20 each that way. I've been able to listen in on stories told by Dolph Goldsmith. He can talk about anything as an expert it seems, especially Mil-Surp weapons. He told me that he wrote a book about Lugers. Dolph is a native of Holland and proved quite the Ladies Man when a film crew made up of Dutch models from Amsterdam showed up at the last MG shoot. They later described him as Suave and Sophisticated and they got ALOT of good pics posing with and shooting his Belt-Feds. Bob Faris doesn't say much unless you ask a pointed question and then he truly is (as many I know say)the most knowledgable person alive concerning 20th Century Mil-Surp weapons of the world. He is said to personally own over 700 NFA type pieces. Just recently started talking with Idan Greenburgh about things he's done. Don't think I've ever seen him NOT wearing his "Smokey The Bear" hat. He can tell you first-hand why you should NEVER carry a 1911A1 with the hammer down on a live round... These are just a few of the interesting Old-Timers I've met. Don't get me started about the ones from the Car World.