A Loaded Subject
by
Matt Kramer
Cigar Aficionado Magazine, August 2001
Vintage
Sporting and collectible arms offer a fascinating blend of history, technology,
and art. 
I'm not a gun guy. I've never shot anything. Any critter bigger than my shoe has
nothing to fear from me. I mention this because I, ironically, was at an auction
preview of antique, sporting and collectible arms at Butterfields auction house
in San Francisco.
What caught my eye - apart from the guns themselves
- was the economics of collecting antique sporting arms. Simply put, they almost
never decrease in value, regardless of the state of the economy. "To date, there
has never been a crash or a severe bear market in antique or collectible sporting
arms," says Greg Martin, who heads Butterfields's seven person arms and armor
department. "There are never any big speculations in gun collecting, unlike, say,
Ferraris. No big bubbles, no big bursts."
Martin Later told me this auction
was "no big deal;" a big deal to him means something that reaches a world-record
price. (Butterfields is the dominant auction house in this field, racking up virtually
every world-record price set at auction.) but, to me, this auction preview looked
impressive. 
For example, there was a collection of Smith & Wesson No. 2 Army revolvers
- the sidearm of choice for Union soldiers in the Civil War.
As stood
in front of the showcases, turned to an affable-looking fellow in his late 60s
standing next to me. "Do you know anything about guns?" I inquired. "Yeah, I think
so," he replied with a grin. "Actually, that's my collection you're looking at."
His name is John Otteman, and he had been collecting for 40 years. Naturally,
we got to talking, and I asked him the obvious: just one gun type? Isn't that,
well, a little specialized? After all, he had 59 of these Smith & Wessons,
plus a bunch of worn leather flap holsters for them.
"Really, it's not
that unusual," he said. "I mean, not everybody goes after the Smith & Wesson
No. 2 revolver, although it is a popular gun. Most collectors specialize in something,
whether it's a particular gun just a time period."
Otteman put his collection
up for auction because he's been living in Singapore for the past six years, which
has crimped his collecting opportunities as well as the gratifying participation
with fellow collectors. Also, Singapore's relentlessly hot and humid climate makes
gun storage difficult. It was time, as he put it, to "exit."
I was more
interested in his collecting entry. What did gun collecting offer him? "Really,
it's history, at least for me," he explained "I think that's true of a lot of
antique gun collectors. I became fascinated with the Smith & Wesson No. 2
revolver for a lot of reasons. Its technology was advanced for its time. But probably,
above all, was its involvement with the Civil War."
"So what's it like
to shoot one of these guns?" I asked, my arm encompassing his showcased collection.
"I don't know," he replied. "I've never shot any of these guns." I was truly baffled.
If you buy wine, you're going to open it, right?
At that moment, Martin
came onto the floor to greet me. I replayed the conversation to him and he was
not surprised. "Oh no, nobody would ever shoot one of these guns. Of course, they're
able to be shot," he adds quickly. "That's a prerequisite. But no collector would
actually do it. It would reduce the value of the gun."
I followed Martin
back to his office in Butterfields's warehouse, which looks like a Hollywood prop
room for wars of all occasions, from the original full metal jackets of ancient
body armor to various Nazi memorabilia that give you the shivers. ("A lot of that
stuff is fake," Martin says dismissively.)
Martin's true love is antique
arms, rather than military memorabilia. An antique arm is anything made before
1898. It requires no license or registration by the government. The reason is
simple: it's very hard to get ammunition for old guns.
"But ammunition
isn't the reason collectors don't fire their guns," he says. "Really, it's just
like coins: the less they're used the more money they're worth. The ideal auction
description for an antique firearm is: 'Mint. Never been fired.'
What
may surprise you," he continues, "is that most of the high end gun collectors
I know don't shoot, period. Surely at least half never fire a gun of any kind,
for any reason."
Finally we get to the rub. When you or I see a gun,
we see a gun. Collectors don't. "Oh absolutely," agrees Martin, who has a sizable
collection of antique firearms himself. "We see history, technology, tradition,
craftsmanship, metallurgy, woodworking - all sorts of things. When I sit in my
living room, which has guns mounted on all the walls, and I look around, I don't
see 'guns' a all." 
This makes sense, if only because many of the collectible guns are richly engraved.
They really are masterworks of a sort. With ivory or rare wood stocks and metalwork
that Cartier would be proud to claim.
Other sought-after items have historical
value, which sends prices soaring. Sometimes it's general history, like the Civil
War or the Wild West or, more recently, the Second World War. ("The German Luger
is one of the most collectible of non-antique firearms," says Martin.)
If someone notable owned the gun, prices skyrocket. For example, a good-condition
Smith & Wesson Model 3 revolver "Russian First Model" might sell for $30,000.
But the same gun, taken from the outlaw Cole Younger after the Northfield, Minnesota,
bank robbery in which he was killed, fetched a whopping $211,500 at auction.
We've got an auction coming up on June 26, 2001 which features the family heirlooms
of James Bowie," reports Martin. "You've heard of the Bowie knife? Same guy. Collectors
will be coming from everywhere for various items in this collection, all because
of the Bowie connection."
"It's hard to overstate the historical element
of these items," he explains. "I'd say that's what enthralls most collectors.
It's history you can hold. Here's the gun that won the Wild West. Here's a rifle
owned by Annie Oakley. Here's something from the American Revolution, and so forth.
It's a combination of history, mechanics and aesthetics - in three dimensions."
People have been collecting for a long time," Martin adds. "Louis XIII
was the first gun collector. All European royalty were big gun collectors. The
founders of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art were arms and armor collectors."
What's worth pursuing in today's market? According to Martin, "Among
American guns, Colt and Winchester are the bluechips. The Colt revolver, for example,
is the most popular gun to collect - despite the fact that more than 1 million
were made."
You'd think that guns never disappear, but it's not so. "A
good rule of thumb," says Martin, "is that among antique guns, only 10 percent
remain. The rest are lost, destroyed, rusted out or just plain worn out. That's
why even the mass-produced, nineteenth-century Colt revolver is so collectible.
Colt had its own engravers. One Colt sold for over $4 million."
Even
twentieth-century guns are highly collectible, especially sporting arms such as
the custom made shotguns of British makers Purdey and Holland & Holland. Such
shotguns (which are still being made today) are a British specialty, although
there was one highly collectible American shotgun manufacturer named Parker. "The
Parker shotgun was comparable in quality to Purdey," notes Martin, "but they were
last made in the 1930s."
What does it take to get into the game? "Pricewise,
we're ready to go sideways on the gun-collecting stairstep," Martin predicts.
Prices range from a few hundred dollars for a nice historical piece to millions.
Some of the most expensive transactions never see the auction floor at all.
Like anything else, you can't buy willy-nilly," advises Martin. "But the record
is clear. Overall, the antique and sporting arms market rises 10 percent to 20
percent a year. Some years less, other years more. But that's the demonstrable,
provable average. And it has yet to go down."
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