I read lots of comments about the good old guns from the past yet I never really see anyone talk about the truly fantastic guns from those old days. Sure I like the looks of walnut and blued steel. I always have. But the guns I see mentioned are far from the really good looking stuff I've seen.

I grew up with a trap range literally in my back yard. It was pretty much the only trap range within 100 miles in any direction too. People came from cities and towns far and wide to shoot there. Some of them brought their really nice shotguns (and ridiculously expensive). They didn't shoot them. They brought them to show them off and they left them lying on the kitchen table in my house while they shot cheaper guns at clays.

I spent a lot of my time drooling over those beauties. These were Italian, British and Spanish made shotguns and stuff from other European countries also. They cost between $2000-$3000 and that was in the late 50's and early 60's. They would cost $20 grand or more today. At least. I've seen some of those old shotguns in the gun library section of Cabela's once in a while. Some are over $30,000. I saw one that was $35,000.

If you want to talk beautiful guns I've never seen anything that compares except maybe a Browning Hi-Power with custom engraving and an occasional Schuetzen rifle. And I've never really seen either of those that truly compared to those Italian beauties.

Quality wood costs money. And I hate to say it but the real quality stuff isn't available on 99% of the guns I've mentioned here. Sorry but that's what I've seen.

As for which I prefer I'm one of those guys who likes almost every gun he sees. But I saw some real pieces of junk in the 60's too. El cheapo .25's, derringers that would almost certainly blow your hand off if you fired them or at least break a few bones, and shotguns that were held together with Elmer's glue and baling wire (seemed that way anyhow). It wasn't all great way back when. Same as today some guns are great and others not so much.

I love my modern rifles. They do the job in a ridiculously fantastic way. You just couldn't go into a gun shop and buy a lot of rifles that would shoot 5" groups at 500 yards way back when. You were lucky to get guns that shot those groups at 100 yards. And some of those guns weren't cheap. Like a Holland and Holland rifle. They would kill an elephant but it's not hard to hit an elephant. You'd have a hard time killing a squirrel.

There were cheap guns back then that didn't have walnut, were single shot, and had what seemed to be cheap bluing (they actually held up well though) that could be bought for not much at all. And they were very accurate and reliable. But no one ever talks about those guns because they didn't look great. But the people I knew mostly had those guns. The person that owned a Winchester was considered well to do. You could buy a Stevens rifle that would shoot just as well but didn't look nearly as good.

I think we all remember the guns that have survived until today and are still highly valued. I still have a Stevens from the 50's that will shoot with anything I own now. But it has a birch stock on it I think. I don't even know for sure. I just know it isn't walnut. We tend to glamorize the past when the truth is the common gun wasn't much better looking then than it is now. And then as well as now you could buy stuff to get the job done without spending a fortune. And I always cared more about function than I did beauty mainly because I couldn't afford the beautiful stuff anyway and that's still true when I think about those old Italian shotguns.

I thought I would tack on an example of the kind of shotgun I used to see. I saw some that looked as good as this Italian made Bertuzzi. It's listed for $145,500 on Armslist.