Author Topic: Unusual Gunshops  (Read 729 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline kjeff50cal

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 294
Unusual Gunshops
« on: July 23, 2004, 10:59:36 AM »
What is the most unusual gunshop (ie. that you had to fill out a yellow form to purchase) you have done business with? So far I bought my M-44 from a Gun/SCUBA diving shop and have bought parts (and thinking about buying a M-38 ) from a gentleman who runs a Religous Book store!!! (Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition).

kjeff50cal
Ignorance leads us into the darkness, Knowlege leads us out.

Offline John Traveler

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1359
unusual gun shops
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2004, 11:18:25 AM »
Do you count the Texas Gun and Liquor stores?

Are they still around?  It's been years since I've seen one.
John Traveler

Offline S.S.

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2840
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2004, 12:36:36 PM »
Back many moons ago there were Western Auto stores that
carried all types of guns, Along with parts for the car!
And any self-respecting Hardware store had them!
Could you imagine Lowes or Home-depot carrying guns
today for sale!  I'm sure the anti-gun Creeps would love that!
There is also a big roadside flea-market I passed in Alabama
That had all kinds of guns for sale.  
"Gotta' Love the SOUTH"
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit
"A wise man does not pee against the wind".

Offline 1911crazy

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4793
  • Gender: Male
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2004, 03:12:26 PM »
I can remember Western Auto having guns in fact I have bought a few too back in '72.  The Weirdest place or gun shop setup I have ever seen was in Vermont back in '73  it was a food store down stairs and a good sized gun shop up stairs as big as the store was.  I guess it was one of the last real country stores.                                 BigBill

Offline RB Rooson

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 330
  • Gender: Male
  • "If you come for mine, be sure to bring yours!"
    • http://www.ptca.00go.com
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2004, 03:28:15 PM »
I remember when:

- Coast to Coast Hardware Stores had a HUGE Gun Department

- F. W. Woolworth's carried an inexpensive line of Brazilian and Italian shotguns

- Almost all grocery stores had .22 and shotgun shells on the shelves

- and Gibson Department Stores in Texas (very much like the old 'Five & Dimes') still have a prosperous gun department to this day!

God Bless Texas!!!
SASS #16974 - Duelist
SBSS # 1195 (O.G.B.) LXXIX
BOLD # 352

"Everyday I pray to be the man that my dog thinks I am!"

Offline kjeff50cal

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 294
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2004, 06:52:25 PM »
I had a .22 from Western Auto and I bought my first solo (I was 18 at the time) shotgun from Target  :) . FW Woolworth was my favorite looking place for milsupl (but at the time I did not buy any  :cry: )..... Swedes were $45 to $65 NRA VG to EX and SKSs started at $65 for Chinese or Russian in VG to EX.... Ah  :roll:  those were the days.
Ignorance leads us into the darkness, Knowlege leads us out.

Offline .45 COLT

  • Trade Count: (1)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 319
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2004, 03:33:23 AM »
Strangest was a place in Rochester, NY back about 1960 or so. Billed it as an antique shop, you could buy anything froma full suit of armor to a Tiffany lampshade. He had a better selection of oddball and obsolete ammunition than The Old Western Scrounger has today. He also had a pretty broad range of long guns from all over the world.

DC
On the 19th of April, 1775, a tyrannical government sent an army to disarm its citizens. They ran into a touch of trouble.

Offline Jack Crevalle

  • Trade Count: (1)
  • A Real Regular
  • ****
  • Posts: 834
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2004, 03:46:24 PM »
Woolworth's around here used to sell Swedish Mausers and the ammo for them.

We had a local hardware chain around here that sold guns when I was growing up but then the guy who owned it ( and it was named after ) showed his true colors and stopped selling guns and started supporting gun grabbers. He claimed that he used to sell guns just to make money or something like that when his hypocrisy was pointed out. Yeah, he was born too late, he would probably have made his fortune selling guns to indians if he'd been born a 100 years earlier. Home Depot, Lowes and others buried his chain long ago. Good riddance.

Offline Robert357

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Contributor
  • ***
  • Posts: 410
I'm gettin old
« Reply #8 on: July 25, 2004, 11:55:37 AM »
I remember going to Eddie Bauer to look at the  safari rifles and mounted heads in their Seattle Store.  Don't think I would ever find them at any modern Eddie Bauer store.  

Nope, the Uppie, anti-hunting types would all have a cow!

Then again there use to be Sears, right there next to the Ted Williams baseball equipment and the Edmond Hilliary backpacks were the  Sears brand bolt action & lever action rifles and the shotguns, all in your choice of good, better, & best grades.

Offline patm41

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Avid Poster
  • **
  • Posts: 183
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #9 on: July 25, 2004, 01:45:02 PM »
As far as the shop itself,, my dealer bought a old bank building.. stores firearms in the old vault ... really kool looking iron door way  and another smaller vault in side ....

Offline His lordship.

  • Trade Count: (12)
  • Senior Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1018
How about the ghetto sites?
« Reply #10 on: July 25, 2004, 04:32:10 PM »
We used to have a medium sized gun shop in Minneapolis, MN until about the mid-1990s, then they closed it.  I only went there a few times looking for hard to find items.  It was on Lake St. in a really bad neighborhood, I had visited it a few times, bought some used holsters there.  It was really scary to park my truck on a side street, then look hard at the people around me in case they started walking toward me, then when you opened the front door of the store, you had to stand in a steel barred cage before the shop clerks would buzz you in, or not.  The clerks had an elevated platform behind a counter to physically look down on people, and as I recall they had holstered handguns on their belts.
 
When I heard they were closing for good with clearance items for sale I went down to look for a bargain.  I heard a local man yell that he was being discriminated against, as the shop clerks would not sell him a gun as he had a felony record which he admitted to while filling out the Federal yellow form 4473, man that fellow yelled, stuff like I will sue you, discrimination, etc.  Lots of scary looking people hanging around outside, no wonder the place closed.

Offline captainkirk

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Avid Poster
  • **
  • Posts: 112
Unusual
« Reply #11 on: July 26, 2004, 01:40:40 AM »
Cason-Monk Hardware in Nacogdoches, TX fills the bill for the way things used to be.  My wife and I registered there for our wedding, got some dishes, small appliances etc.  I bought my first MK2 Ruger there (on layaway no less) several years ago and they have always had a good assortment of guns and ammo.  It was one of those kind of places that if you dug to the bottom of the stack of boxes, the prices got progressively older  :lol:  and cheaper  :lol:

Kirk
Phil 4:13   I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.

Offline procrastinator43

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Member
  • *
  • Posts: 10
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #12 on: July 31, 2004, 05:42:02 PM »
US 19 in Palm Harbor, Florida has a store that sells yard ornaments and statues on on the outside and guns inside. How's that for a combo?

Offline Jack Crevalle

  • Trade Count: (1)
  • A Real Regular
  • ****
  • Posts: 834
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2004, 02:20:47 AM »
Lawn ornaments and guns? Hey, that's a great combo. Most lawn ornaments are so hideous I'd like to take shots at them.

Offline ratherbefishin

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • A Real Regular
  • ****
  • Posts: 680
unusual gunshops
« Reply #14 on: August 02, 2004, 12:01:38 PM »
I remember when every hardware store had a selection of 303's , a couple of 12 guage single shot shotguns ands of course Cooey 22's.Shells were always available.The thing is, guns were considered just another implement and found in every farmhouse and home inthe country.
 One of the delights was the new fall sears catalogue which had pages of guns and amunition to be poured over.$8 bought you a full wood 303 British in very good shape- some times brand new and still in grease right from the arsenal.

Offline Runs with Scissors

  • Trade Count: (0)
  • Avid Poster
  • **
  • Posts: 173
Unusual Gunshops
« Reply #15 on: August 02, 2004, 08:19:25 PM »
We had "TG&Y" stores here in Oklahoma that were true "five and dime" stores. Mom could get a spool of thread, toilet paper or shampoo while dad was picking up film, tackle, lawn mower parts and such.
I would be in the gun department looking over the LLamas, Rossi's, Stephens and Remington firearms.
My sisters would be buying penny candy and nickel comics.
My first shotgun came from TG&Y. It was a Stephens break open .410. I think it cost $25.

Bill
Measure twice. Cut once.