Selling heirloom guns. Stop feeling guilty about it!

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Wyatt Burp

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That's how I feel now. If I consider selling a gun my dad had for decades yet it doesn't really have the sentimental value like some other ones, I don't feel guilty about selling it anymore. Some stuff are cherished and full of memories, others are just dead weight to pack around through your life. A couple years ago I sold the Weatherby Mark V I bought my dad. He loved it but it just sat in the gun rack looking pretty. But now a guy with young sons in L.A. has it, shoots it, and it's their family heirloom. Look at it like dog rescue. A dog is now loved, appreciated, and part of a new family. I know that Weatherby feels the same way. It took me a while, but I'm free of guilt trips. Lots of our guns and other stuff are recycled heirlooms that travel from one family to another. And sometimes there's nothing wrong with that.
 
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I look at it the same way. You are only the temporary custodian of the item. You acquire the item, use and enjoy that item and then it becomes your job to pass that item along to another who will be come its temporary custodian to use and enjoy for a while.

You may pass along information about the item to the new custodian but it up to the new custodian to determine if that information is relevant or even worth keeping. Remember the item can't talk so what ever has happen in the past, says in the past.
 
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.
 
You're right. Almost everything in this world is "temporary." When we're younger we don't realize that, or at least we look at things a bit differently. I'm happy your Dad's Mark V found its way to a new, good home.
 
Well said, Wyatt.

Sometimes, a new member will be asking for how much he can expect to sell some modified refinished ex-Victory clunker he inherited from his mother's cousin once removed, and a number of folks here will implore him not to sell it and instead cherish the "family heirloom" and pass it on to his children and whatnot.

I don't get that at all. Most guns are just use items. A few may be special, and you'll know, but some gun a family member picked up at a show because the price was right, or a revolver that spent its life on a closet shelf as insurance against an intruder that never came, doesn't become an "heirloom" just because the family member died.

My dad was not into handguns; when he passed several years ago, he left several rifles and shotguns, but there wasn't anything I could really use, as it all duplicated what I already had, other family members weren't interested, so we sold them to a friend of my dad who had teenagers getting into hunting and got my mom a good price. Much better than having any gather dust in my safe.
 
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Breakaway500 said:
"All the stuff that we own has to go at some point"

Not all of it.

Some things are going with me. Like this dumb gun I built when I was a just a nipper (11-ish) Nobody would appreciate it anyways,so may as well take it with me..;)
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I appreciate it. Especially if it is an actual firing gun - which it appears to possibly be.
 
My dad bought this 1871 Mauser with a pristine bore in the late 50s. It was always in the gun rack growing up. But it's one of those family guns I'm talking about. It just sat in my safe for ten years since my dad died so I thought it was time to pass it on to a Mauser collector/shooter so I recently sold it. I'm 61 and all sentimental feelings about this particular gun ends with me since it hasn't connected with my kids. I not only feel completely guilt free, it's nice knowing someone who wanted it real bad now has a new heirloom of his own to pass on.

DSCN0126.jpg
 
Wyatt Burp said:
My dad bought this 1871 Mauser with a pristine bore in the late 50s. It was always in the gun rack growing up. But it's one of those family guns I'm talking about. It just sat in my safe for ten years since my dad died so I thought it was time to pass it on to a Mauser collector/shooter so I recently sold it. I'm 61 and all sentimental feelings about this particular gun ends with me since it hasn't connected with my kids. I not only feel completely guilt free, it's nice knowing someone who wanted it real bad now has a new heirloom of his own to pass on.

DSCN0126.jpg
Click to expand...

I have no children, but I have 2 real nephews and an "honorary" nephew who is really into guns (I got him his Life Membership in the NRA for his bar mitzvah) and is a premier firearms law attorney. I have a friend who is a retired Air Force colonel and she is a military historian since her retirement. My dad died 2 1/2 years ago with a nice collection of guns, but my brother and I are both at retirement age and our sister is not a shooter. There are some things that my brother and I can use now but there are other items that we don't feel we can take out and play with. The best thing we figured we could do is to cash out some of the premier collector pieces and give the proceeds to our sister so she gets her appropriate share of Pop's estate and the guns get a good home. I took a lot of time and set out in my will exactly who will get a lot of my guns based on the interests of the beneficiary so that I know they will get a good home with people who cared about me and will appreciate the guns.
 
Between us, my brother and I inherited from our father the following, with some tradeoffs in the other guns to even things out in our minds: An Arisaka rifle in perfect condition, with the linen gun sock bearing the owner's name and address in Japan, brought back from the Pacific by a great uncle, and a Nambu pistol, samurai sword, and battle flag brought back from the Pacific by our grandfather. Dad spent some time and money back in the late 70's and found the family of the sword bearer, and they wouldn't take it back, due to the disgrace of surrender.

Those are heirlooms. Everything else from Dad has a sale price (admittedly, some stuff will be more expensive than other stuff) . . .
 
Guns were just tools to my dad and he had no sentimental value for any of them and I didn't really either so when I inherited them I kept them for a few years but later sold them. He DID however have a Navy Ka-Bar knife that he purchased when he got out of the Navy in WWII and he bought it at an Army Surplus store for one dollar and that was his self defense weapon he always kept under the front seat of the car. I remember him using it quite a bit as a kid and thought there was nothing that big knife couldn't cut and one time he even made me a pair of stilts with it. When he passed that was the only thing I really wanted and I told everyone that, but one of my little nephews snuck off with it.
 
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