Gary Reeder
Years ago
Monday, November 04, 2024, 14:19

Old Joe at J&G used to get in on a lot of Police seized guns and estates. When our shop was in Santa Fe I did a lot of business with him. He would call and tell me I had a wooden keg of guns coming and just write a check for it. He always sureprised me with their contents. In one keg full of sawdust there was around 20 Colt 22 LR pistols, all in the white, all used but in good condition. No idea why they were in the white. In another flat crate he sent me a dozen shotguns from the Idaho State Prison. All were Winchester model 12s and all standard 18" police shotguns, all decent and with a brass plate on the side of them saying Idaho State Prison. One other wooden barrel was full of Llama Especial long slide pistols chambered in 38 Auto. These were also in the white. Another one I should have kept.
Companies with a lot of money can get in on large batches of guns like that. We did quite a bit of business with the local Police Department on seized guns, some handguns, some long guns, some junk. I would go thru them and in trade get them a couple of AR-15s. That helped keep their expenses down and let me get some interesting firearms. Some were the normal junkers like Ravens and Jennings but some interesting guns too. One I passed up on was an 8 3/8" S&W model 29 in nickel. I should have grabbed it but put it for sale.
There was a gun shop in Tucson that used to specialize in European firearms and I used to drool over their full page ads in Gun List. Some countries in Europe ban certain guns and they end up on the market. But better that than be destroyed like some Police Departments in New York, New Jersey and such.

On one of our African hunts we had some time to spare so the PH took us to a gun shop in Kimberley to look around. There were no guns visible but were in a huge walk in safe in the back room. We went in and spent a couple of hours looking around. He had crates of the African version of the Street Sweeper stacked up against the wall by the dozens. He also has racks and racks of older double rifles and European double shotguns. There were a lot of really classy old European shotguns. Kase was videoing while Colleen opened up boxes and held up these guns for me to comment on what they were. He had a large box maybe 3 feet X 3 feet full of little 380 auto pistols. They were Walther PPK clones and appeared used but not overly used. South Africa was going thru a Mandela change at the time we were there and most of the long guns were seized guns and were to be sold to some big company. I asked the gun shop owner if we were able to buy any of the guns he had in the walk in safe. He said they already had a deposit on them and I couldn't buy any.
Buying estates and Police seized guns is a neat way to find some old classics and I buy every one I can afford.