Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/641958
I just bet you're richer than you think. I'll wager that sometime in your life, you've owned a fine gun. It may not have had Holland or Purdey on the rib. Most likely it didn't have a rib. Just a barrel and a hammer. Back to simplicity: just a lock, stock and barrel. But it was fine, and always has been. Because the odds are better than Vegas you still have it and always will. And didn't your chest poke out like a banty rooster the first time you carried it, and shot it, of your own? Maybe you killed big game, like black snakes, starlings, or even the hawk that was raiding Granny's chicken pen. Cause it kinda grew up with you, and it belonged to somebody special in your life before it belonged to you, long before you knew what a really fine gun was. And was gifted to you. They may have even claimed it was Santa Claus, but you knew. Because the love, and those you loved were there when you opened it, under the tree, bright as the Christmas lights. And betcha what else. You wouldn't trade. For all the Hollands. Cause it means more than dollars. Any amount of dollars, given it's a part of you and there'll never be another, and you'll never let it go for any amount of money. But you'll give it to someone, the right someone one day, for nothing more than the joy and satisfaction of seeing it rightfully away. Most likely it's a twenty gauge or a four- ten, and it likely has Remington or Winchester or H & R or Iver Johnson or Revelation on it somewhere. Probably it came from Sears or Western Auto or Montgomery Ward, and was delivered in brown paper through the mail, or maybe it was purchased with egg and tobacco money long 'bout the time you were born, at the General Hardware there in the little town where then you lived. Kinda prospectively by someone who loved you too. Or would. Who put it back in a corner for you to discover and wish on, and couldn't wait 'til you came old enough to earn it. Probably, too, it was kinda bought or cut to fit you along the way, but wouldn't now. But that don't matter. Cause you still shoot it, and ever will, long's you're still around to pull the trigger. And it don't matter none that .410 shells now cost about as much as going to the dentist, and you probably wouldn't take it to your shooting club where ever'body's toting a Krieghoff or Piotti. But that don't matter neither. They could look down their noses any way they want to. It don't make it any less rare. It may be a little scratched and dinged, perhaps even a trifle loose. May have a spot of rust here and there that a good coat of oil hides. Might pattern a hair left or right, and the bore might be a little You'd never sell that favorite old gun, but you'd give it to the right someone for nothing more than the joy and satisfaction of seeing it rightfully away. S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 7 Mike Gaddis i r s t L i g h t F he author, with his 23-month-old setters Rafe and Jube, framed by two of his favorite shotguns—an Iver Johnson Champion (left) built in the late 1940s and a new Iver Johnson 600. T