RM Vivas
US Veteran
I’ve been very fortunate to find a small niche in the gun collecting world.
When I originally started looking at NYPD records, my only plan was to simply count the entries and be able to say “xxx S&W Model 10’s were bought in 1971, xxx Colt Cobras were bought in 1967, etc.”
It was never my intention to put a name to each serial number.
For reasons that I absolutely can’t remember though, I decided to copy all the records I found and then spend an awful lot of time putting them into a computer.
One thing led to another and I wound up in a small niche as the guy to ask if you had a question about NYPD guns. I don’t have all the answers but I probably have more than anyone else who is actually willing to talk!
I’ll never be Jinks, Kopec, Wilson or any of the other “go to” data guys, but I’m comfortable where I am (although I’m working on expanding my knowledge base).
At some point someone asked me a question about an NYPD gun they had and I went through my records and sent them a quick note about who owned their gun and thus was born the first ‘letter’ I did.
Over time, and especially in the past few years, I’ve written quite a number of letters for folks and I’ve always gotten a kick out of doing so.
Being a very firm believer that our hobby (Avocation? Religion? Lifestyle?) has enough external threats and pressures, I always advocated the free exchange of useful information that made our hobby better.
For this reason I never charged (and still don’t) for the letters I wrote, even though they do consume a bit of time to put together.
As I started writing more frequently over the past few years and learned what it takes to be a proper historian, I realized that my already decent sized library needed to be expanded and certain gaps in it filled (I also realized I needed to shore up the flooring under the bookcases too; books are heavy).
So, I established the Buy. Me. Books. tip jar.
Now when someone asks for a letter, there is usually a link attached that goes to my Amazon wish list. IT’S %100 OPTIONAL AND IF YOU WANT A LETTER BUT CAN’T CONTRIBUTE TO THE BOOK FUND, I’M OK WITH THAT! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve blown a wad of cash on a nice gun and walked out the door with the gun in my pocket and a cloud of doom hanging over my head as I wonder where my next few meals are going to come from (my recent splurge on M3983 triplets springs to mind!), so I can fully understand the “Oh man, I’m so short right now!” situation.
I’ve always thought of the letters I write as a sort of fun thing to do that helps people enjoy their gun. I never really thought of them as anything more than that.
I mention this because something really wild came across my mailbox the other day.
I have a fairly decent relationship with an internet blogger whose nom de microchip is Commander Zero ( Notes From The Bunker ). Zero writes about guns and preparedness and periodically asks me about NYPD stuff.
This time he sent me a link to an online auction outfit where someone was auctioning off an NYPD gun. The absolute kicker was the photos of the gun showed it resting on a factory letter and on one of MY letters! Not only that, the letter I wrote was I quoted in the ad copy!
This absolutely killed me! Someone put enough of a value on something -I- wrote that they included it as provenance for a gun they were selling!
That is so weird. Next thing you know I’ll be getting one of those little squeeze presses to slap a seal over my signature like the big guys do!
Anyway, I got a huge kick out of that and wanted to share it.
When I originally started looking at NYPD records, my only plan was to simply count the entries and be able to say “xxx S&W Model 10’s were bought in 1971, xxx Colt Cobras were bought in 1967, etc.”
It was never my intention to put a name to each serial number.
For reasons that I absolutely can’t remember though, I decided to copy all the records I found and then spend an awful lot of time putting them into a computer.
One thing led to another and I wound up in a small niche as the guy to ask if you had a question about NYPD guns. I don’t have all the answers but I probably have more than anyone else who is actually willing to talk!
I’ll never be Jinks, Kopec, Wilson or any of the other “go to” data guys, but I’m comfortable where I am (although I’m working on expanding my knowledge base).
At some point someone asked me a question about an NYPD gun they had and I went through my records and sent them a quick note about who owned their gun and thus was born the first ‘letter’ I did.
Over time, and especially in the past few years, I’ve written quite a number of letters for folks and I’ve always gotten a kick out of doing so.
Being a very firm believer that our hobby (Avocation? Religion? Lifestyle?) has enough external threats and pressures, I always advocated the free exchange of useful information that made our hobby better.
For this reason I never charged (and still don’t) for the letters I wrote, even though they do consume a bit of time to put together.
As I started writing more frequently over the past few years and learned what it takes to be a proper historian, I realized that my already decent sized library needed to be expanded and certain gaps in it filled (I also realized I needed to shore up the flooring under the bookcases too; books are heavy).
So, I established the Buy. Me. Books. tip jar.
Now when someone asks for a letter, there is usually a link attached that goes to my Amazon wish list. IT’S %100 OPTIONAL AND IF YOU WANT A LETTER BUT CAN’T CONTRIBUTE TO THE BOOK FUND, I’M OK WITH THAT! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve blown a wad of cash on a nice gun and walked out the door with the gun in my pocket and a cloud of doom hanging over my head as I wonder where my next few meals are going to come from (my recent splurge on M3983 triplets springs to mind!), so I can fully understand the “Oh man, I’m so short right now!” situation.
I’ve always thought of the letters I write as a sort of fun thing to do that helps people enjoy their gun. I never really thought of them as anything more than that.
I mention this because something really wild came across my mailbox the other day.
I have a fairly decent relationship with an internet blogger whose nom de microchip is Commander Zero ( Notes From The Bunker ). Zero writes about guns and preparedness and periodically asks me about NYPD stuff.
This time he sent me a link to an online auction outfit where someone was auctioning off an NYPD gun. The absolute kicker was the photos of the gun showed it resting on a factory letter and on one of MY letters! Not only that, the letter I wrote was I quoted in the ad copy!
This absolutely killed me! Someone put enough of a value on something -I- wrote that they included it as provenance for a gun they were selling!
That is so weird. Next thing you know I’ll be getting one of those little squeeze presses to slap a seal over my signature like the big guys do!
Anyway, I got a huge kick out of that and wanted to share it.
