Boxed Guns
What do some of you recommend for old guns that you still have the boxes for? Do you put them in the gun safe in the box, or do you store the box elsewhere and put the gun in the safe by itself? I've always wondered what the proper thing to do was as I have a lot of older Brownings.
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None of the guns I deal with would be considered "NIB", so I keep the boxes in an overhead space and the guns in a safe. 0 -
+1 Ray B 0 -
Keep the gun in the safe and put the box on the shelf. Very few older boxes, most of which were made of cardboard, are suitable for storing firearms because cardboard retains moisture and that is not good for guns. Future buyers like boxes, tools, manuals and other paperwork that originally came with firearms when they were sold new. Guns which have those items will bring a premium over those that don't. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by mark christian
Keep the gun in the safe and put the box on the shelf. Very few older boxes, most of which were made of cardboard, are suitable for storing firearms because cardboard retains moisture and that is not good for guns. Future buyers like boxes, tools, manuals and other paperwork that originally came with firearms when they were sold new. Guns which have those items will bring a premium over those that don't.
This is what I figured. Thanks for the information.0 -
Just what everybody else has said! However, make certain that you keep the boxes and make even more certain that your family or whoever is going to deal with them after you are gone knows that the boxes are valuable. Just had a case where a Smith collector passed away and the family threw away all the boxes before they called me!!!! He had lots of great pictures of S&W 1 1/2's in their original boxes. All together they "think" they threw away about 300 boxes. Don't let that happen to your collection and your family. A good idea is to write it all down--tell them about the value of the boxes in writing--as part of an inventory. It's also a good idea for you to include the price you paid for each item and the value at the time you write it all out. Lots of wives and families have been take by unscrupulous "friends" after one of their "buddies" has passed. I know it's not a great thing to think about, but if your collection means something you to, making that clear to them will give them that much more appreciation of it and you. 0 -
Already made that clear to wife, daughter, and son in law. Hope they paid attention. 0 -
I wake up in the middle of the night sweating after a nightmare in which my wife sells off all my guns at the price I told her I paid for them !
Actually, I have a spreadsheet with all that information in it and instructions to my wife in how to deal with them.
Oh, yeah, plus one for the box separate storage. The only boxes I keep the guns in are either plastic or wood.
Dan R0 -
Amen on storing separately. The paper can absorb water. It also can contain acids, used during its manufacture, that can damage the gun. Many people have also made the mistake of not only storing them in the box, but also leaving them in their plastic bags. All bad for the guns. The plastic and cardboard were intended for short term protection during shipping from the factory to the new owner. [:)] 0 -
The boxes will not absorb any more moisture than is in the surrounding air, so that is not the major issue. Plastic bags will keep the gun from coming in contact with the box anyway, and a well-oiled gun in a plastic bag will be safe from rust for decades. I know because I stored guns in plastic bags so I could stack more in the limited space I had, and for the decades before I built my vault room, I had no damage to any gun in a plastic bag.
If you have more than a handful, space is the issue when storing guns in boxes. Long gun boxes take a huge amount of space compared to the "bare" long guns, as do handgun boxes. Even in my vault room, I cannot store many long gun boxes or the vault would be overflowing with boxes. I store only the most valuable boxes in the room and have the rest outside the vault room. I do have all of my handgun boxes in the vault room.
I store the long gun boxes in plastic bags outside the vault room. The plastic bags keep the boxes from rubbing against each other and offer some protection from water should a pipe break or a roof leak near where they are stored.0
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