rburg
Member
OK, like many of us I kind of have a fetish for S&W "SATs" or sight adjusting tools. Back in my salad days, I treasured everything that came in the box with my new gun. Sure I went to gun shows but I don't remember seeing screwdrivers. Could be that my focus was on other things. But I had a fishing tackle box filled with my toys, mostly all cleaning accessories. And the screwdrivers migrated there. Its where all gun stuff was kept safe and sound. And I discovered that everyone wasn't as bad about it as I was.
The real eye opener came in the early 70s when my neighbor and city cop knocked on my door one day. We'd been going to gun shows for years together and were both drinking, shooting, and buming around buddies. He had in his hads two very large shopping bags, filled to overflowing with S&W gun boxes. Back then a single guy on a big city police department had money to spend. And he spent his on new guns. He was going to just throw away the bags if I didn't want them. Foolish boy. So of course I took them.
And as I started looking at them I realized that some of the boxes rattled. Which indicated that I needed to open and inspect every one of them. And I guess out of maybe 50 boxes I found maybe 20 SATs. To me it was a treasure. But over the years I'd opened one plastic bag after another to either get a new bore brush or swab, or to give on away to some needy friend. All the bags didn't even contain one. Fixed sight guns only had a rod, brush, and swab. And I even foolishly ruined a few of the tools trying to unscrew something that required a real screwdriver. But I still had maybe a half dozen of them by 2000.
So about that time I realized they were treasures, not junk. And some guy in an endcap booth at a gun show had them for sale. He had 4 of them and there was a $5 price tag under them. So I politely asked to see them and he handed them out. I took a quick glance, got out a $20 and thanked him. He looked confused and said "you want all 4?" Yep. His reply was "what do you know that I don't?"
And a couple of years later there was a gun show down at Ft Knox. I called a buddy and we agreed to meet there around 10:00 on Saturday. It was a lousy show (at best.) But one vendor there had his rendition of S&W tool kits. He'd somewhere scored a roll of plastic tubing, kind of like a yard goods item. He or someone had dumped their stuff in a section of it and ran a sewing machine across the top and bottom. They repeated the exercise until they had their kits sewn up. Yes, I bought all of them with a screwdriver inside.
But that was over 10 years ago, and the only screwdrivers I've seen in recent time have been the nice old black ones for $75 or so each. And I've bought every one I've seen for that kind of price. I'm what you'd call a pig.
So last weekend rummaging around at the National Gun Day show I came upon a table with a handful of screwdrivers. No, none of the nice old ones, these were 1970s vintage fluted handles with the hollow ground tips. And they were priced at $25 each! Yes, it shocked me. But I resisted any temptation and didn't buy a single one. So now I'm heading down to my gun room to try to find any I've got left and put them all in one drawer. Those things are getting hard to find, and kind of pricey. If you've got any unwanted one lying about, just send them to me for safe keeping.
The real eye opener came in the early 70s when my neighbor and city cop knocked on my door one day. We'd been going to gun shows for years together and were both drinking, shooting, and buming around buddies. He had in his hads two very large shopping bags, filled to overflowing with S&W gun boxes. Back then a single guy on a big city police department had money to spend. And he spent his on new guns. He was going to just throw away the bags if I didn't want them. Foolish boy. So of course I took them.
And as I started looking at them I realized that some of the boxes rattled. Which indicated that I needed to open and inspect every one of them. And I guess out of maybe 50 boxes I found maybe 20 SATs. To me it was a treasure. But over the years I'd opened one plastic bag after another to either get a new bore brush or swab, or to give on away to some needy friend. All the bags didn't even contain one. Fixed sight guns only had a rod, brush, and swab. And I even foolishly ruined a few of the tools trying to unscrew something that required a real screwdriver. But I still had maybe a half dozen of them by 2000.
So about that time I realized they were treasures, not junk. And some guy in an endcap booth at a gun show had them for sale. He had 4 of them and there was a $5 price tag under them. So I politely asked to see them and he handed them out. I took a quick glance, got out a $20 and thanked him. He looked confused and said "you want all 4?" Yep. His reply was "what do you know that I don't?"
And a couple of years later there was a gun show down at Ft Knox. I called a buddy and we agreed to meet there around 10:00 on Saturday. It was a lousy show (at best.) But one vendor there had his rendition of S&W tool kits. He'd somewhere scored a roll of plastic tubing, kind of like a yard goods item. He or someone had dumped their stuff in a section of it and ran a sewing machine across the top and bottom. They repeated the exercise until they had their kits sewn up. Yes, I bought all of them with a screwdriver inside.
But that was over 10 years ago, and the only screwdrivers I've seen in recent time have been the nice old black ones for $75 or so each. And I've bought every one I've seen for that kind of price. I'm what you'd call a pig.
So last weekend rummaging around at the National Gun Day show I came upon a table with a handful of screwdrivers. No, none of the nice old ones, these were 1970s vintage fluted handles with the hollow ground tips. And they were priced at $25 each! Yes, it shocked me. But I resisted any temptation and didn't buy a single one. So now I'm heading down to my gun room to try to find any I've got left and put them all in one drawer. Those things are getting hard to find, and kind of pricey. If you've got any unwanted one lying about, just send them to me for safe keeping.
