Anyone Else Buy Something That Had A Surprise Gun Inside?

2nd hand story but I ended up with the revolver which I later sold. I was at a garage sale and asked about any sporting goods. Recently retired guy was raising funds for fuel for his new motor home to start traveling. He brings out a 9 round 22 Longhorn revolver in a leather holster. He had found it while chukar hunting in the Owyhee mountains of S.E. Oregon. Very remote desert country with lots of hiking required to get anywhere!!! He sat down to take a break and have a snack and when he put his hand down to help himself up, it came down on this revolver. The holster was severely weathered and mouse chewed around the edges. The frame and barrel were pretty rough with pitting but the plastic stag grips were perfect. It seemed to function fine so I bought it. He said he had checked the numbers with the local and state police and had not heard back in the 10+ years that he had it. I think I gave him 25 or 35 bucks for it. It was pretty loose and shaved a bit of lead when firing. Perfect boat gun that lived under a boat seat for lots of years before I sold it off 10+ years ago.
 
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ajgunner said:
2nd hand story but I ended up with the revolver which I later sold. I was at a garage sale and asked about any sporting goods. Recently retired guy was raising funds for fuel for his new motor home to start traveling. He brings out a 9 round 22 Longhorn revolver in a leather holster. He had found it while chukar hunting in the Owyhee mountains of S.E. Oregon. Very remote desert country with lots of hiking required to get anywhere!!! He sat down to take a break and have a snack and when he put his hand down to help himself up, it came down on this revolver. The holster was severely weathered and mouse chewed around the edges. The frame and barrel were pretty rough with pitting but the plastic stag grips were perfect. It seemed to function fine so I bought it. He said he had checked the numbers with the local and state police and had not heard back in the 10+ years that he had it. I think I gave him 25 or 35 bucks for it. It was pretty loose and shaved a bit of lead when firing. Perfect boat gun that lived under a boat seat for lots of years before I sold it off 10+ years ago.
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Good thing he didn't put his hand down on a Rattler or Copperhead! It must've been a popular place for at least one other person to sit for a short break.
 
It's not EXACTLY one of those "Hey look what I found!" moments, but a lady friend of mine called me about two guns she found at her recently deceased rich grandmother's house. It was a multi-million dollar estate she was handling, and there were two brothers that were trying to remove everything of value before all was inventoried. How the brothers didn't see the guns, I don't know.

Anyway, she wasn't anti-gun or anything like that, but she wanted the guns removed asap. I told her I'd come over and help her identify them, and maybe give her an approximate value. I was then CLEARLY told that she didn't want ANY issue with the guns from her brothers, as whatever the value was, it's spit in the ocean compared to the overall $$$ of the estate.

Ok I said, I'll be right over. I had no clue how this was going to work out.

I arrive at this mansion, and there is my friend waiting for me. We go in, and I see an old Colt model 1908 Vest Pocket .25 auto. Condition was not very good, but all looked original. No real bucks involved here.

Things changed when she took me to the Winchester. Oh my goodness! A model 1892 Saddle Ring Carbine in .25-20 Winchester caliber. Condition was really very good, all appeared original, and there was an ancient box of Winchester ammo with it, one round missing.

I told her the Colt wasn't really high value since there are so many out there, although I suspected the Winchester MAY be worth a lot of money. I explained that I'm not an expert in Winchesters, but if she gave me a little time I'd be able to give her a reasonable value number.

That was not what happened next.

She said, "These guns are going to be out of the house today... what are my options?" I said you could sell them to a local gun shop or even a pawn shop, but you won't get what they are worth. You could trade them in at the next "Gun Turn In Event" that the police hold, but you'll only get a $50 gift certificate for each. That's even worse. I told her I'd be happy to arrange selling them online if she wanted me too, but that wouldn't be today.

The next thing she says is "Listen, here's the deal, either you take these guns to the police today, or you can buy them for $50 each. That's the bottom line." I told her it wasn't anywhere near the value, but if that's what she wanted to do, I'll do it.

A minute later I handed her a crisp $100 bill, and walked out with two guns and the box of ammo.

Sometimes you just get lucky.

Best wishes everyone.

Roger aka Mr. Wonderful
 
I haven't had quite the good fortune of some of you guys but, a number of years ago I was at a downtown pawn shop and found a semi auto 12ga painted a flat green color. The tag said it was for sale for $89. I was pretty sure it was a Winchester but hard to tell through all the paint.
I got it home and started using some Homer Formby stuff to take the paint off. Underneath all that nasty paint was a pre-64 Winchester Model 50 with perfect bluing and a great walnut stock. I shot it for a few years, sold it at a nice profit.
 
I didn't buy it, but it was found in my mothers things after she passed away. It wasn't really a "gun" as such, but it was one of those little 22 "blank" guns, that used a plastic ring, holding 8 glorified caps. It was "loaded", with a half dozen spare rings of the caps in the drawer with it. Looked about like a chrome plated RG, with white "ivory" grips. (No, it was not an RG.)

Where it came from or why she had it we never figured out. We don't know rather it was a toy she bought for one of the boy grandchildren (none of them remember ever having seen it) or if she got it for her own "protection," we have no idea. It was in with "her stuff" not just around the house like a kids toy would have been, which led me to believe it was her "home defense gun." It looked to have never been "fired."

Praise the Lord, she never needed it.

I held onto it for a number of years, but must have misplaced it during a divorce/move.
 
On a separate note. We found several Colt and Remington black powder revolvers while relic hunting in Hanover County, Virginia, where I grew up. They were more revolver shaped hunks of rust, but we found them, but they were interesting none the less. No doubt some of their previous owners had worn blue, some grey. It's cliche I know, but even then I wished they could tell their stories.
 
I don't have a good story, but I can see one in the making at my parents. My dad has never bothered with a gun safe. He has always just kept guns that he doesn't shoot much well greased and stashed in cases that are slipped under certain floor boards in the attic. I know the K-22, the Woodsman and at least one or two GI .45s are up there somewhere along with who knows what else. I know he keeps a list of everything he has with S/Ns, but where it's all "hidden" is anybody's guess.
 
target tech said:
I don't have a good story, but I can see one in the making at my parents. My dad has never bothered with a gun safe. He has always just kept guns that he doesn't shoot much well greased and stashed in cases that are slipped under certain floor boards in the attic. I know the K-22, the Woodsman and at least one or two GI .45s are up there somewhere along with who knows what else. I know he keeps a list of everything he has with S/Ns, but where it's all "hidden" is anybody's guess.
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Went through this when step father died unexpectedly. We found 4 or 5 different lists, but until my brother (computer guy) did more digging we had no idea which one was most up to date. Took a couple of weeks and the actual garage sale house cleaning before we found all of them (we think). Would not have thought 3 would be in a truck out back that had not moved in over a year. Only 2 in daily driver. Attic, closets, under bed, between mattress and box springs, behind furnace, basically all over.
 
found

In '67 I traded a "58 Mercury Turnpike Cruser that didn't run for a '55 Ford 2 door that did. About two years later I was cleaning out the car and found a Whitney Wolverine .22. My uncle was into antiques and found a Colt 1911 in the hot water tank portion of an old wood burning cast iron Kitchen stove.
 
When I was a young PO on Marthas Vineyard in the early 70's, I went down in the basement of a house I was living in and found a 1911 wrapped up in a cloth in the eves. The numbers had been filed off of it. I was not into 1911's back then and didn't know anything about them. I turned the gun in to the dept since the ser# had been removed. Should have kept it.

When I moved to my town to be Chief of Police in 96, we gutted the old house for a total remodel. I got home for lunch one day and my Father in Law was tearing out the bathroom. I started to take out the old medicine cabinet and said," This is where the old lady hid the money." He said that it is probably in that can down there, in the sub floor. There was a can with a wire wrapped around it( a hanger with a hook) I asked what was in the can. He said that he didn't know, that he hadn't opened it thinking that it might be something toxic. I took it over to the kitchen sink and opened it. There was $5100 in hundreds rolled up in the can. We found that the can had been hanging between the hot and cold water pipes in the plumber's chase right next to the toilet. The old man would sit on the toilet, open up the trap door and access his stash. When my Father in Law started beating on the wall to remove the tub, it must have fallen in the hole in the sub floor.
The home had been built by the previous owners. I called up the son of the lady who owned the house and advised him that I had something to return to his mother who had moved to Grand Junction. My wife an I met her and returned the can and contents.
 
When I was a kid in the early 50's a friend and I were digging through trash under a creek bridge. We saw a gunny sack with what looked like bed rails sticking out of it. We dug it out and there were two model 1887 Winchester lever action shotguns and two model 1906 Winchester pump .22's. There was also a lot of personal papers, marriage licence, insurance and others. We discovered that it was all stolen from an old gunsmith in town. We took all the stuff back to him and he was so appreciative he gave us each a half box of .410 shells.

I can't see one of those old high dollar 1887's at a gun show anymore without thinking how happy we made that old man.:)
 
When my father-in-law passed away my mother-in-law gave me his tackle box and 3 rod and reels. They were all salt water equipment and I am 300 miles from the coast so it sat for a while. After 18 months I had a trip to the beach where I planned to do some surf fishing. I did an inventory of the tackle box and found a cowboy action Tanfoglio 22lr wrapped in an oilcloth in a zip lock bag. When I told my MIL she told me that was for any sharks and told me to keep it.
 
bigmoose said:
A friend bought a house down the block from Remington in Ilion. He found a cigar box in the attic filled with Model 51 parts and enough nickel plated ones to assemble a complete gun. I was tasked with putting it together for him and I got to keep the spare parts. All the holes had to be reamed to install the pins, but she came out beautiful and functioned flawlessly. A very stunning pistol, the rollmarks just popped in nickel. I can't recall if the magazine was nickel. This was 25 years ago. He submitted it to the local sheriff and when the serial came back clear, my friend put it on his NY permit.

I'm sure it was an employee "lunchbox special".
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[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18cW_yHo3PY[/ame]
 
I was employed by a junk yard in the 80s and while stripping the interior of a Cordoba for a 1/4 panel cut off section, came across a balled up coat that had a small J frame revolver in it and a sealed baggie of some off white powder. I told the front counter of my find and they summoned the local police.They brought in the State police investigatory team and the last I heard the bag was heroin and the gun was stolen. The only good thing was they finished stripping the car down to nothing...which made my job easier. :)
 
In all the years I've been dealing with guns I can't say that I ever found much on my own but I've ended up with several at various times... Closest to finding one probably doesn't count, bought a box of gun parts (mostly old top break and solid frame revolvers) of a guy who was trying to get rid of a lot of junk his late father in law had. Figured there were a lot of salvageable parts in there, after digging through old frames, bags of small parts and loose pieces found an FN 25 auto (the old model not the Baby) wrapped in a rag. No mag and the grips were broken but it was otherwise complete and functional. Replaced the mag and put a set of Franzite grips I already had on it and it was a reliable little pocket gun.

I do have a Winchester 1906 22 pump that was found on top of the ductwork in an old house a guy bought and several old Iver Johnson and H&R revolvers that people found tucked away in deceased relatives homes by family members cleaning things out. I have my wifes grandfathers 32 Colt Police Positive which was thought lost after he passed (found on top of a cabinet under some old papers years later when his wife finally moved into a senior living apartment). Also have a shotgun that belonged to her dad.... Her parents divorced in the 1970's, he must have left in a hurry as my mother in law found it in a corner of a storage closet 20 years later when she decided to clean out some old household junk that had been sitting there so she could use the space. She gave it to me along with some odds and ends of gun related items that were with it.

I've known of other people finding guns in things they've bought, usually old houses or an old car. People do tend to stash things and sometimes never get back to it. One odd one was the result of helping a friend sell off the guns from an estate he was in charge of. As a thank you for my help he gave me the deceased persons reloading gear and components and a box of gun parts. The box had two incomplete Remington single shot shotguns (out of which I was able to build one working one) and the back half of a Stevens Favorite with a broken firing pin (simple repair). To my surprise some time later he called me and asked me to stop buy, he had something for me. When I went over he told me he had a bunch of odd auto parts and pieces he had hauled off and finally got around to going through.... he handed me a blue plastic tube and said "open it".. to my surprise it had the barrel and forend to the Stevens in it (and it had a perfect bore!)........... how it ended up out in the garage when everything else gun related was in the house is a mystery. I still have it and it is a great shooting little gun.
 
An elderly gentleman owned a large farm that I hunted on. He was forever bringing out interesting firearms to shoot. His kids had all relocated out of state and he enjoyed having another gun enthusiast around to talk guns and shoot. I noticed that several of the guns had some surface rust on them so for Christmas one year I bought him a large plastic tackle box and outfitted it with an assortment of cleaning supplies. A month or so later I was down there visiting him and we started breaking some of these weapons out to run a patch through the bore and wipe them down. He emptied his gun safe and then kept bringing me guns.

His house had been built in the early 1900's and then a large addition put on at some time later. You went down two steps to go from the old part to the new part. I had never noticed before but on the stair case was a narrow door. When you opened it there was a narrow hallway of sorts between the two parts of the house. It was only about two feet wide but about 12 feet long. The walls were covered with guns. He had just driven nails in the walls to hang them by their trigger guards. He kept bringing me guns and I sat and oiled them down for about four hours that day.

Not too long ago I learned that he had passed away. I stopped by the farm house a couple of days later to make sure that his family knew about this hidden space. They were appreciative of my effort in helping them locate all of his old guns and the time I had spent shooting with him. We had dozens of the guns laid out and they told me to take my pick. Although there were a lot more valuable guns, I chose an old Remington #4 rolling block .22 with a heavy octagon barrel and a micrometer peep sight rear and target globe front. He had this gun put together to shoot matches with back in the 50's and I had shot it quite a bit and knew it was incredibly accurate. I've often thought about what would have happened if he had passed and no one knew or remembered about his secret hiding place.
 
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