I would never sell and heirloom gun but there is a huge difference between such and merely a gun that a family member had but it was nothing important to them. Grandpa's prized lever action that he may have inherited from his father or grandfather and might be the rifle you got your first deer with should never be sold but something he picked up and only possessed not so much. We have a Taurus .45 LC snub nose. Nice little revolver that I picked up years ago as something to keep in the car, tacklebox, etc. and now resides in a kitchen cabinet so that even in that room there is a firearm within reach just in case, but nothing I would want my nephew to view as a Holy Grail gun simply because I owned it.