Greenwich Report--BEST IN SHOW
Posted: Sun Jan 04, 2009 12:11 pm
Comrades,
Returned from the Grenwich show last evening. FOXIST is holding down the fort today, as both SILVERS and I had previously scheduled, family engagements.
Every member on this site should feel
a great sense of pride, for once again,the AHFCA
stole the show and erected a gorgeous array of Ansley's finest. If I heard it once, I heard it 50 times over; "...the best American guns in the room were over at the AHFCA booth......and none were for sale (LOL)!!!"
We were located over in "Amen-Corner", directly opposite where the PGCA, set-up in 2008. Unfortunately, neither they, nor the Smith boys, displayed this year and were sorely missed. Wouldn't it be great if in 2010, AHFCA, PGCA and LCSCA could all display in that corner of the room??
Greenwich is a fantastic venue ( albeit expensive) in that it's literally a 2 minute drive from the NEast's main conduit, I-95. Many of us were concerned with the very light turnout during the Fri. night preview, however when
Sat. morning arrived, the crowds were lined up, half way out the parking lot. It took me 10 minutes to make it to the booth, as the front hall was wall to wall humanity.
The one resounding sentiment, bouncing off the Greenwich hall was...."where are all the hi-grade guns"?? I like most, believed that with a depressed economy, where cold, hard cash is definitely king, that some of the collectors would be adopting, the flight to quality approach and converting some blued steel, into a more liquid asset. This was simply NOT the case. Unless I missed one, I saw nothing higher than a B grade Fox and a DHE Parker on the tables.. Yes, there were a few decent Sterly's and some small gauge V-grade Parkers (the best, a lovely 28b VHE, that interestingly enough, landed at the AHFCA booth for inspection) but none of the usual eye candy, ever materialized.
Other than that 28 ga Parker, the nicest Fox to walk into our booth, was a cherry, Gen-1, A grade ( 17,xxx) with a ton of CC , mirror bores and fiery trigger guard blue.
Ol' FOXIST broke into a cold sweat over that one. Something tells me, he will be sleeping in the kids room 'till around April....(haaaa-haaa "Plunk")
Allow me to digress but adjacent to our booth, lay a DH Parker that haunted several of us, including this accidental tourist, all weekend. She was a 32", 1901 vintage, (FS-Titanic barrels) with most unusual stock dimensions. She had a SG with a ton of DAH but a very high comb. When you held her away, it looked like a flintlock from the Reading School, with its characteristic "humpback" shape. The stock flowed into a Silvers pad, highly compressed and browned-out from 70-80 years of sitting upright in a safe. This gun whispered, "live-birds" all day long. Didn't our beloved "LEADER" shoot a 32" D-grade Parker, from that period??? Wouldn't that be the cat's meow....stranger things have happened, right???
I'm sure FOXIST will provide a more detailed report and no doubt, the F-grades and 32' Super-Fox's will come pouring out of the woodwork, at noon today!!!!!
In summation, the AHFCA was once again....BEST-IN-SHOW and despite a dismal economy, we are looking forward to our best year ever, with more events, an expanding membership base and greater member participation, than ever before.
YES........WE CAN!!!!!!!!
Happy New Year...........TOOLMAN
Returned from the Grenwich show last evening. FOXIST is holding down the fort today, as both SILVERS and I had previously scheduled, family engagements.
Every member on this site should feel
a great sense of pride, for once again,the AHFCA
stole the show and erected a gorgeous array of Ansley's finest. If I heard it once, I heard it 50 times over; "...the best American guns in the room were over at the AHFCA booth......and none were for sale (LOL)!!!"
We were located over in "Amen-Corner", directly opposite where the PGCA, set-up in 2008. Unfortunately, neither they, nor the Smith boys, displayed this year and were sorely missed. Wouldn't it be great if in 2010, AHFCA, PGCA and LCSCA could all display in that corner of the room??
Greenwich is a fantastic venue ( albeit expensive) in that it's literally a 2 minute drive from the NEast's main conduit, I-95. Many of us were concerned with the very light turnout during the Fri. night preview, however when
Sat. morning arrived, the crowds were lined up, half way out the parking lot. It took me 10 minutes to make it to the booth, as the front hall was wall to wall humanity.
The one resounding sentiment, bouncing off the Greenwich hall was...."where are all the hi-grade guns"?? I like most, believed that with a depressed economy, where cold, hard cash is definitely king, that some of the collectors would be adopting, the flight to quality approach and converting some blued steel, into a more liquid asset. This was simply NOT the case. Unless I missed one, I saw nothing higher than a B grade Fox and a DHE Parker on the tables.. Yes, there were a few decent Sterly's and some small gauge V-grade Parkers (the best, a lovely 28b VHE, that interestingly enough, landed at the AHFCA booth for inspection) but none of the usual eye candy, ever materialized.
Other than that 28 ga Parker, the nicest Fox to walk into our booth, was a cherry, Gen-1, A grade ( 17,xxx) with a ton of CC , mirror bores and fiery trigger guard blue.
Ol' FOXIST broke into a cold sweat over that one. Something tells me, he will be sleeping in the kids room 'till around April....(haaaa-haaa "Plunk")
Allow me to digress but adjacent to our booth, lay a DH Parker that haunted several of us, including this accidental tourist, all weekend. She was a 32", 1901 vintage, (FS-Titanic barrels) with most unusual stock dimensions. She had a SG with a ton of DAH but a very high comb. When you held her away, it looked like a flintlock from the Reading School, with its characteristic "humpback" shape. The stock flowed into a Silvers pad, highly compressed and browned-out from 70-80 years of sitting upright in a safe. This gun whispered, "live-birds" all day long. Didn't our beloved "LEADER" shoot a 32" D-grade Parker, from that period??? Wouldn't that be the cat's meow....stranger things have happened, right???
I'm sure FOXIST will provide a more detailed report and no doubt, the F-grades and 32' Super-Fox's will come pouring out of the woodwork, at noon today!!!!!
In summation, the AHFCA was once again....BEST-IN-SHOW and despite a dismal economy, we are looking forward to our best year ever, with more events, an expanding membership base and greater member participation, than ever before.
YES........WE CAN!!!!!!!!
Happy New Year...........TOOLMAN
