Ed, perhaps I did not put into words what I was thinking in my head. I don't think that I said that the name has no value to a collector.

There are collectors that collect famous persons guns and own several. What I was trying to explain was that to a collector that has and collects Walter Winans guns, the desire to acquire this gun could push the price into the stratosphere. To the S&W collector that knows the name but will not pay a premium for that fact, the price would be less.

I know who he was, but I would not pay double or triple the guns street value as merely a gun because it once belonged to Walter Winans.

If I were in the market for the model and could get one owned by Winans for a small premium say a few hundred more, then I might bite. It is just not one of the hot buttons that would make me pay a huge premium.

As a further example, to the S&W collector that collects modern semi automatics only, and he is still a collector by definition, might not give a rats patooty for a gun owned by Winans unless of course it was one of his later semi automatics.

That is what I was trying to illustrate when I made my statement to the OP.

Audience and size of audience can also affect the price received tremendously as well. A local pawn shop that does no online or written advertising will probably not receive as much for a given firearm as one of the national auction houses.

So all in all, I was merely trying to explain some of the nuances in selling firearms.

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James Redfield
LM #497