Where to start. Maybe I'll take the negative approach since I've been having a bad day so far.

OK, like the OP here, I consider myself a newcomer to the K22s. I didn't start buying them until I was 25 back in 1973. Simple reason was I couldn't afford one until then. Things like school and baby got in the way.

At one time a few years ago I had 36 of them and realized I kind of had a problem. So I dumped 2 dozen of them into the market, and have remained happy ever since. I still look at them whenever I see one up for sale, but for me to buy it will need to be better than one I've kept (not going to be easy) and I'm going to need to part with one I've already got. That'll be difficult, too.

We like them because they're great guns. I don't limit myself to the postwar, having only 6 nearly perfect prewar models. My shooter is a ratty old one that came to me having been shot a fair amount. The only evidence I have of that is its been *'d (starred?) and the honest wear it shows. Some day when I get some ambition, I'm going to try to wear it out. I'll need more ammo.

I made that above comment about it being ratty for a good reason. I doubt anyone here would describe it that way. And it worries me a lot. A huge percentage of K22s I've picked up over the years show almost no wear and tear. Some appear new in the box, others so new I had to mate them with a suitable box (katrina trailer.) What worries me most is how so many great guns can remain new showing now use at all. If they were such great shooters, you'd think the original owners would burn them up in the first year or two. Yet my early 1930s guns are perfect. It would appear to me the owners never discovered how great they really are.

I figured I need to test this theory by asking it here. Recently we had a poster put up pictures of a well used one. I'm going to guess he's the exception, not the rule. How many of you have well used K22s showing a bunch of wear and tear? Out of my dozen, only the one can be described as a working gun. I bought it originally because of the serial number, K155. It didn't bother me it had the star, at the time it was the lowest number postwar I'd seen. So it gets to have all the fun while the other ones get punished for their good looks.

And I really don't know why we all love them so dearly. I sure have fallen for them, and a whole bunch of others seem to have, too. Clearly the original owners didn't experience them, to their detriment but my gain.

Boxes are even highly sought. I still remember very clearly 20 years ago (give or take, it kind of blurs) walking the aisles of National Gun Day and finding a book vendor with extra tables. I don't know, maybe he didn't buy them and just expanded to make the show look full. On one of his extra tables, he had gun boxes. We could call him a Dan Tanko light. The two that interested me were the gold and red K22 picture boxes. He wanted $25 each for them, but using my best negotiation tactics, I got the pair for $40. My friends were almost rolling in the aisles laughing at what a fool I was. Thinking forward, I know one lost his retirement in the stock market, the other never saved a dime. Maybe I wasn't as foolish as they thought. Point being its not just K22s that are well loved, its the accessories.

Want to spend some money? Go out and try to buy a screwdriver some time. I know, you can buy one at Harbor Freight. For the price of a prewar model you can buy half the store. The nickel ones have vanished off the gun show tables. I tend to assign that to our discovery and publication of the idea the K22 2nds came with them, as did the very early postwar guns. Not sure there ever were enough blued/black oxide ones to satisfy the demand.

I'm going to guess we really don't know why we like them so much.

But I'm as bad as the original owners. They remain in their boxes. And I've stuck in a screwdriver and the other accessories when there wasn't already one. I even have period boxes of ammo in the box, in the empty triangle under the barrel.

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Dick Burg