I just took a look at Dave's new Santa Rosa R7...very very sweet indeed. I got to thinking that there are times when we get our hands on something wonderful, something special, and we love it and it loves us back...it's the same for girls I would think, but there is a magic that is totally unique between a man and his guns (there is still a little boy in all of us with a pen knife and a Red Ryder hunting bull frogs at the pond with our dog at our side )...time silently passes like a thief in the night, stealing our youth and leaving us with razor stubble and responsibilities. Then something hapens in the future and for some reason we sell or trade that thing that we once loved so much, that thing which loved us back unconditionally....then it is lost and gone forever, remaining with us only as a memory of what once was and can never be again.

Like Dave's Santa Rosa R7, our Dianas are what I call generational guns...they are German works of art in my mind regardless of how we complain about them at times. I have guns like my 34 which is not real expensive, then I have guns like my Theoben Eliminators that are a bit rediculously expensive...there are my beloved 350 Mags that are like old friends to me that take long walks out in the desert with me...just me and my buddy Mr. 350.

These guns that we have ARE generational...there is something that is seemingly strange that happens when we pick up that CERTAIN gun and it just feels right....it fits just right...somehow it speaks to us in a language that only WE understand...like the day that you first picked up that Red Ryder and flew off the back porch heading to the pond with faithful ol Spot leading the way...

I have some guns that don't mean anything to me...they're just a gun...then I have those SPECIAL ones that just SPEAK to me...my buddies.

If the time ever comes my friends, try with all of your might to NOT sell them or trade them...not the ones that SPEAK to you!

These generational guns, these Pals, have the potential to be here long after we are gone...handed down from generation to generation.

One day, your Great Grandson just my be sitting at the pond with HIS little boy on his knee and say, "This gun was my Great Grandpa's gun...one day it will be yours...then, as it has done so many times in the past, its barrel rises as it comes to shoulder and POP...another perfect (X)....

Here is a picture of my Great Grandpa Robert, born in Fort Scott Kansas in 1868. This photo was taken in 1898 on his 30th birthday as a gift to his mother...story has it that his Dad made him cover THIS exact gun with his overcoat as it was for his mom and that showing it wouldn't be "fitt'en".

I was born in Feb. of 1967 and only got to have a few years with my Great Grandpa that I can remember, but I remember so clearly sitting on his lap when he was old and nearly blind, listening to his stories of covered wagons and indians (...real stories as he LIVED them...)and shooting the gun that you see in this picture (.44 cal CF) off his front porch at his farm...we would both hold it and I would squeeze the trigger...his father bought the gun new in 1878...he left it to his boy, my Great Grandpa...and when Great Grandpa passed in 1974 at 106 yrs old, he left it to me...my Mom kept it for me...when I was 15 she gave it to me in an old box...there was the gun and a note on old wrinkled paper...it was a note from Great Grandpa to ME that he tried to write, mostly blind and all, which said,"Shes a good'en...take care of her and remember me...".

I don't think that I need to say any more.......

Couldn't agree more. Some guns are "generational" like my trusty old Sheridan.
The best is when you get to take them out now and then and relive some of those memories.

Russ S.

Funny, how every time I pick up one of my guns, especially the tuned HW 30 from Marcelo, and my new Rosa, I think of my little 7 year old son. I hope to spend a lot of time with him. These are just something to let him remember me by.

Thanks Curtis
Dave@vabch

Tremendous post. Thanks for sharing the story of your wonderfull Grandfather.

Wow, that was great! How lucky you were to be able to hear those stories first hand, and to have a relic of that time, a beautiful piece of history, your own family story, to hold in you hand!

In today's society things are stacked heavily against an object surviving to be an heirloom like that. We dispose of so much serviceable equipment, it's a shame. Hopefully some of the wonderful airguns pictured in the pages of this forum will see a similarly long life...

My great grandfather left me his 1902 remington rolling block single shot .22LR. Unfortunately, it was very badly cared for thru most of the middle of the last century, and unless I completely rebuild her (reline barrel, re build action, replace damaged stock.... List is endless), she'll never shoot again.

There is magic in holding and using a tool held and owned by your ancestors. Magic.

J

but, we have a disposable society it was raised during the PLASTIC era and born with the Nintendo mentality

whenever a new one comes out, dispose of the old one and buy the new one. they have no loyalty for the plastic products

while on the other part, there is our generation that thinks some things have a value determined on its sentimental effect. you cannot quantify this value because it belong to you and only you, no one outside your realm understands the meaning of it

my gampa had a SW revolver which was passed to my father who in turn was given to my oldest brother by mom when my father passed away. only my brother and I have any love for the revolver, an outsider would place the value based on the blue book and not on what it is worth for us. just hope my brother's son understands this concept and hope he does not have the plastic one

warren

PS: Jason I know how much that .22LR means to you

and remember "it's 30% the gun and 70% the shooter"

How many sets of golf clubs or fishing rods/reels have come and gone in the last fifty years? I'll be it is staggering. Quite a bit of this is marketing-driven. That's why there are new models coming out every year, all promising to improve your whatever. So, people naturally tend to discard the old in favor of the new. Then, when the new fails to deliver on its promises, they pine for the old, again.

The saddest thing about passing on collections is that sometimes the heirs have not one jot of interest in them. On a brighter note, we tend to benefit from these when the guns go back onto the market.

I have a 850 mag. that will be given to my son. Seems some folks give up on todays kids simply because newer materials come out? I have a so called "plastic trigger" on two RWS rifles that will outlast any metal trigger in history. I hate that term "plastic society". Kids are as good as kids 100 yrs ago and beyond. Let's not miss the point. It is not about the gun, or the gold coin, or the book. It is the "relationship" of father to son.

Dave@vabch

Hang on to that beauty,and keep the hand written note with it and maybe a couple of generations from now one of your great great grandsons will tell a similar story!
If the politician's don't take away our arms.

BBGun Bob

And entirely fitting for the venue. Bringing to mind the truth of the quotation: "Those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them."
As a small lad in the 1940s I was fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time with my paternal Grandmother who regaled me with her memories of coming to Texas from Tennessee in the late 1800s by covered wagon as a small girl of 6 years old. My father, born in 1900, was the family historian and I was schooled from a very early age in family history and tradition which was inclusive of no small amount of state history.
I retain yet Dads' Savage Model 23 .22 rimfire with which he put so much food on our table. It still wears the the non-adjustable peepsight that he made with hacksaw, file, hand drill and sweat with such precision that it hasn't NEEDED to be adjusted in the half century or more that it has graced the breech. Even into his 80s Dad could still topple a squirrel from a limb at 50 yards with it and it shoots scarily accurate to this day----proof beyond doubt that a well cared for .22 can last virtually forever. The lead that he melted and poured into the dovetail for the original open sight to ease the hand when carrying the gun in the woods has been so eroded by handling over the years that it resembles a saddle more than the smooth transition it was when first poured and dressed to level with file and care.
But in a few days that old Savage will be gone, passed on to my eldest daughter who, like myself, learned to shoot with it. It is right that I give it to her now lest it be lost in the shuffle when my race is run.
Dads' Model '93 Marlin 30/30 full-length rifle with buckhorn sight will still grace my gunrack however. For a bit longer anyway. I have a cousin, son of my Dads' youngest brother, who has expressed interest in it since his Dad killed his 1st deer with it on borrowing it from Dad. So I'll be contacting him soon to see if he wants it badly enough to pay near book value. My philanthropy does have practical limits.
So if you have items that encapsulate family history and tradition determine who in the family will honor them and put them into their hands before attrition leaves that decision to others less concerned. We don't 'own' these icons; we are merely entrusted with their proper care for a time and a large part of that responsibility is passing on the duty to those who can be as justly trusted with it as ourselves. Tom @ Buzzard Bluff