I've enjoyed reading all the responses in this thread thus far. Amused to see how many folks I seem to have a lot in common with but amazed at the folks whose taste ( and apparently resources) exceed my grubby wishes and means - I'm congregating in rarefied air !
Can't complain. Been at it for almost 50 years, had some lost some and learned early on the difference between "want" and "need", so if I wanted it and it paid for itself through my endeavors, hobbies and interests (gunsmithing, trading, loading) I usually got it. And after a temporary sting, the disappointment of the "ones that got away" many times turned out to be fortuitous when I learned from other's mistakes.
I'm old enough and live in enough of a rural area that when I was young the closest I ever got to seeing many guns I lusted after was only on the page of a magazine. So after working my "want" up into a "need" and acquiring the "grail" gun I was often disappointed to find it didn't shine in the dark as I'd fantasized it would. Then, like many have stated, I came to the realization that the spice was in the hunt and the anticipation (much like working your way through the stock of potential mates when you chase one until she catches you
)
Within reason, if I've wanted it I have it or have had it at some time, but due to my upbringing and sense of responsibility my hobbies were always required to be self supporting if I were to participate (which is why I never golfed a lot or had a nice boat to water ski behind
). I worked too hard to put the money in that wallet and felt it rightfully was my duty to first attend to family and my other responsibilities so that reaching back and pulling out those particular funds was too painful. Ergo, the hobby has to pay for itself. And though unsaid, I see the same in many of the responses here. Like I said, I'm congregating in rarefied air and feel I'm in good company.
But I'll play along. Like many others have said like
31FordA, the one I never got and realistically never will would be the Thompson M1928A-1. Gotta love a Tommy Gun. As the late colonel Cooper would have said,
"I find it to be a gruntling artifact".
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