I'm sure a lot of people who are interested in Western and firearms forums own, or know folks, who own older firearms. Some are expensive collector's pieces, but most are just plain old lead throwers that we have due to model or memories. If you have any old guns that were previously owned by others it may be worth your time to remove the buttplates or grips (provided you can do so without harming anything) to see if they have any personalized markings.
Years ago, when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, I bought an old Gibraltar 16-gauge break-open shotgun from a local gun shop. I think I paid $13.50 for it. When I returned home I took it apart to give it a good cleaning. For some reason I removed the plastic buttplate too. On the inside of the buttplate a name, date and town was scratched into the plastic. The date was 1917 and the town was located a few miles from my home.
Although I tried, I was never able to find any family members of the man named, and I don't know if he was a young boy or an old man in 1917. A few years later someone submitted a question to a gun magazine about Gibraltar firearms. The magazine replied they were made from 1880 to 1910, and were sold through mail-order catalogs.
I still have this shotgun, and although it's not worth very much, it's still interesting to me because of a previous owner's written record contained on a scratched buttplate.
