Does anyone collect Colt .32 autos?

[Jim McArthur]

Originally posted by lugerholsterrepair
Jim, Earth calling Jim! Come home, we miss you! The economy of the World is constantly changing and if you haven't heard , everything of value is expensive. If Colt were to provide this service for free every idiot on the Planet would pester them incessantly asking about the most mundane pistols.
A charge filters out those who are serious from those who are curious. I would emagine that an official Colt letter would add at least the cost of the letter to the value of an expensive historic Colt. Not necessarily so to the often mundane pistol.
I think Colt has a perfect right..nay.. a responsibility to charge whatever the market will bear for this service if nothing else to support it's continued existance.
To maintain these historical records in storage and hire a researcher costs money. When did you last perform a public service for free? Jerry Burney

Jerry, Jim answering Earth and Jerry! Jim's been here all along. And he knows that the economy of the world is...really always the same. Everything costs something. Someone must pay for everything.

My point is that a huge company like Colt can readily afford to hire a person - maybe, an historian, and a secretary - and provide this as a service to its customers.

Why should they do this? Out of the goodness of their heart? No. Out of enlightened self-interest.

You see, Jerry, providing salary, benefits, and office space to those couple of people might set Colt back, oh, maybe to the tune of about .0000001 of their annual expenditures. In return for giving away their services, they would make customers happy. And happy customers buy the company's product. And that's called profit.

However, today our companies are run by accountants, and people with MBA's in marketing who couldn't sell iced tea to Bedouins at the oasis bazaar.

And that's why these companies go out of business.

When did I last perform a public service for free? Well, I work for the federal government, so I don't know how to answer that question. No one is really interested in the advice and representation I provide to US Naval commands, outside of the commands themselves.

But if I were the honcho at Colt Firearms, you can be sure we'd be "giving away" this precious information about our own products. Oh yes!

Because, you see, I'd want YOU to have a reason why you should buy a new COLT, instead of a new Smith and Wesson, or Ruger, or whatever.

And if a stupid letter that cost my company $20 in research time and a 37 cent stamp helped do that: yeah, you can bet we'd be cranking out those letters for " free"!

"Thank you for your interest in our fine old pistol, Sir; Colt's always glad to be of service!"

(Company brochures included at no extra cost)



Jim