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I can feel his pain....

mongrel1776
I suspect any of us who have the opportunity to occasionally handle antique firearms can relate to how this guy must have felt. I've been done the honor of being allowed to inspect 18th-century longrifles that were, beyond doubt, worth far more than I was (of course, if you had listened to dad when I was growing up, that could be said of a homemade slingshot....[:D]). The thought of damaging one -- ugh. Bad enough to break something valuable, but something that in a very real sense can't be replaced....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080214/ap_en_mu/odd_fractured_fiddle
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Comments

13 comments

Date Votes
  • Idahobound
    I feel for him but I have never held a gun worth that much
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  • bull300wsm
    Heck I get upset when I get a scratch on one of my hunting guns...I can't imagine that[:0]
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  • oldemagics
    i recently had the honor...and the terror!...of not only holding but to fire SEVERAL rounds from a custom built bench gun from a collection of such rifles.
    to give you an idea of the age, it was built on a martini action, with a wwII machine gun barrel and custom fabricated stock and supposedly valued at somewhere around $20,000 +!
    talk about a nervous couple shots!
    i am surprised i even hit the paper i was so nervous about anything happening while it was in my hands.
    owner seemed to not even notice or care (tho im sure he did, just good at not showing it) and joked that i needed more range time with a group like that. (over an inch at 100)
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  • spurgemastur
    LOL.

    I've been in the presence of a $3K Colt revolver (NIB, unturned cylinder) and I declined even to touch it for fear of what I might do to it.

    I know that's pretty small fry in the world of expensive objects, so I can't even imagine how that dude felt when he fell on a $1M violin. OUCH! At least he owned the object he destroyed
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  • darkvesperia
    I find it amazing how humans in general tend to shy away from costly things that are not ours. Recently in class we had an oppertinty to work with dry wallers and none of us wanted to touch the 1000 dollar tool known as the bazooka
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  • Zebra
    Guess the Devil isn't going down to Georgia now!
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  • spurgemastur
    quote:Originally posted by darkvesperia
    I find it amazing how humans in general tend to shy away from costly things that are not ours. Recently in class we had an oppertinty to work with dry wallers and none of us wanted to touch the 1000 dollar tool known as the bazooka


    Is that so weird? We have a sort of understanding that we're responsible for the objects we handle. So we do a little math with every object we touch: the value of touching this object is X, the probability to damage this object is Y, the cost to repair or replace the object is Z. If Y*Z > X, then I will decline to touch the object.

    It's not that amazing to me.
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  • darkvesperia
    but when you think about it the probability of you actually damaging the object your considering touching is usually quite low. Its almost like we know we won't break it but decline anyways.
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  • p3skyking
    Funny how people think of "things" as valuable. Every time you give a kid a ride or pick him up, you're holding a million dollar baby!


    Don't drop him![;)]
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  • Mk 19
    I love to hand over fine guns for people to inspect, the look they give is a cross between awe and fear. Some people are like that with a $10,000 Garbi 103, others with a $70,000 Rizzini R-1. I have yet to find a person willing to handle a $300,000 Bertuzzi Gull Wing. It just amazes me, if sombody let you drive their Bently would you really say no?
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  • mongrel1776
    I never ask permission -- I wait for the owner to offer to let me handle the gun, or whatever, and if he or she doesn't I'm content to look and try not to drool too much -- but if I am encouraged to pick up and look over something very expensive I will do so. No million dollar violins (or anything else), but I have been privileged to take a long, up-close look at a couple of longrifles each valued at several tens of thousands of dollars. The owner of the Christian Beck piece wouldn't allow me to put it down until I'd studied it to his satisfaction and shouldered and sighted it (a big no-no with antiques like this) to boot. While I respect the value of a one-of-a-kind item like an original longrifle or centuries-old violin, if the owner were to offer, and I was interested enough to want to look at it, I'd handle a million-dollar piece in a heartbeat. p3 is right, it's just an object, and once the owner has given the go-ahead it's clear that he or she understands that (and trusts me, which helps a lot with my attitude about this).
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  • spurgemastur
    quote:Originally posted by p3skyking
    Funny how people think of "things" as valuable. Every time you give a kid a ride or pick him up, you're holding a million dollar baby!


    Don't drop him![;)]


    Well, that's worth remembering too.
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  • allen griggs
    When I used to live in central Georgia my buddies and I did quite a bit or Indian artifact hunting. I got lots of spear points and a beautiful stone axehead.
    A couple of my friends were digging around on a sand bar in the Oconee River and they found an Indian pipe! This pipe was made of clay and was in the form of a duck. I was told that it was in perfect condition and any museum would have been glad to display it.
    I never got to see it because a week after they found the pipe, these guys were smoking dope in it, dropped it on the kitchen floor, and it shattered into a million pieces.
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