Or should I say, Another Hessney Auction on My Credit Card!
On Friday afternoon, I drove to Geneva, NY to make it there in time for the auction preview at the Hessney auction house. Me being me, I procrastinated and did this and that before leaving like fiddling on the Internet and left about 2 hours later than I had planned at noon. Bad move cause I only got there at about 615PM and the preview ended at 7PM. Luckily though, I had enough time though to look over the guns I knew I wanted to bid on and most of the others. Then, back to my hotel with a detour. I stopped by the Hotel Exchange bar across the street from my hotel and that was another bad move. They were quite liberal with the vodka and it and their beer was pretty inexpensive compared to bars near my home. I got snockered and only crawled out of bed, quite hungover, at about 830AM (meaning their doors had been open at the auction house for a half hour already). Not to worry, bidding would not start until well after I got there on Saturday morning.
I planned to bid on several guns and did so without a winning bid on any of the ones I had planned bidding on in advance (meaning when I was still home and going through their autction catalogue). Damn me for being hung over and hazy brained due to that because I mistakenly stopped bidding on two guns on which I had planned to bid more but remembered the wrong self imposed bid limit on each. I most likely would have had either a brand new Marlin 1895G Guide Gun or a brand new Ruger Mini 14 Ranch Rifle or both - had I actually remembered that I had been willing to bid about $50 to $75 more on each than I did bid. I have been kicking myself in mine arse all day over this; that Guide Gun could have been mine for a very good price below what they sell for normally and it was new and in the box. Same goes for the Ranch Rifle to a lessor extent, it would have been mine for closer to the retail selling price but still a good deal. Each was new and in the box with all papers and accessories that normaly come with them.
There wound up being several other guns on which I decided to bid only once I saw them. I wound up with the high bid on one of them and hope it is in as good a condition as I think it is in but will have to do a much better inspection of the bore once I get it home. It is difficult to see down a muzzle loader's barrel is all I can say. Yes, the firearm I purchased did niot even require a NICS check because it was a muzzleloader. It is a CVA 50 caliber Hawken rifle. It looks pretty good all around from what I could see of it and I hope the bore looks as good. This gun (along with my crossbow) extends the deer hunting season for me by a couple of weeks or so.
Other than that muzzlealoder, I bought two lots of ammo and a single lot of three knives. One of the knives is a Remington Bullet Knife from 1985 that is worth about 75% more than what I paid for it (and I say it is worth that much because a few have recently sold on Ebay and GunBroker at about that much more). I may sell it outright or may wait a few years and try then. I figure it will only go up in value if kept in pristine condition as it is now.
Right now, I am in Binghamton near where I will try one more day, tomorrow, out in the woods with the hope of bagging a deer.
All the best,
Glenn B
