Wednesday, March 4, 2020

When I Drive To My Son's Place...

...in Benton, AR - from where I live near Texarkana, TX - it's a drive of about one hour and forty-five minutes to two hours. That's for travel of approximately 127 miles one way. That makes me smile because when I drove from my home in Mineola, NY to my office in Manhattan (in NYC), it would take anywhere from an hour and fifteen minutes to an hour and a half, one way, and that time frame was considered pretty darned good - an hour was amazing. It once took me about 4.5 hours to drive that same distance going home from work and the shortest drive time took about 35-40 minutes but that was at about 0400 in the morning. The thing was that drive only was all of 26 miles each way. I do not miss the traffic in and around NYC.

All the best,
Glenn B

I Went To An Estate Sale Today...

...that someone, whom I met at a local dog park, told me about yesterday. He said they had a bunch of firearms for sale. Yes they did, and whenIi got there they also had a long line to get into the bedroom of the house where the firearms were displayed. I am guessing I was on the line for about 45 minutes before I had my turn inside to look them over. While I was waiting on the line, three guys came out carrying guns they had purchased. Three guys - in 45 minutes! It pretty much was a dead giveaway as to the prices that were being asked. Yet, when I asked one guy if he would mind telling me what he paid for two (2) SKS rifles he walked away with, he said $175 each. Well, fuck that lying piece of shit because the two remaining Norinco SKS rifles they had, when I got my chance to look them over, were $425 and $410, so there is no way they sold two others, nicer ones at that, to him for $175 each.

Anyway, when I got inside they still had several rifles and a few shotguns in the bedroom and several pistols and a few other rifles in the walk-in closet along with a bunch of ammo and accessories. Almost everything was priced out of this world and they would not come down in price on anything even one penny. The line they gave was 'it's the first day of a four day sale, they usually are only three days, and we never go down in price on day one'. They could have sold out today had they come down $50 to $75 or so on guns for which they were asking for $400. 

While waiting on the line in the living room, I eyed some accessories and firearms related books and such and grabbed hold of a Department of The Army Technical Manual TM9-1276 / Department of The Air Force Technical order - TO39A-5AD-2 - Cal.30 Carbines M1, M1A, M2 and M3 manual. That put me out only $4.00; funny they had another of the same exact thing (but a trashy looking copy, mine is pretty fine) just a shelf away for $8.00. The 'gun room' was next. Once in the 'gun room' I soon realized prices were too high for me and greed evidently was the rule of the day. Not only were things mostly overpriced but they removed the bayonets from three or four SKS rifles they were selling, piled them on a shelf and put a $28.00 price tag on each with two remaining SKS rifles selling separately laying on a bed and another in the walk-in closet. Not to leave empty handed, except for the book, I moseyed around a bit more after looking at the guns and found a new in the package (old stock) Ruger 10/22 magazine for $12. I grabbed it right up because other new ones I have seen have been going for around $20.00; although, the price made me wonder why this one was so inexpensive I took it regardless. It was one of the few things that had a really decent price on it.

After paying for those two things, I went outside and to the shed and workshop out back. There was a lot more of overpriced stuff out there. Mike and Frank, of American Pickers fame, would have been disappointed by most of it because most of the things were run of the mill used items and or outright junk and or trash in my opinion. Before going outside, I had tried to query Pyrodex RS, that I had seen in the gun room, but I could not get a signal. Outside, once I got connected to the web, I saw it goes for about $17.00 to $24.00 for  one (1) pound jar. I grabbed it on my second go round in the gun room - no line by then at about 1030 - it went for $8.00 and was in a sealed jar. I recently picked up a BP revolver and if this is the right stuff for it, well I got a bargain. If not right for a BP revolver (and I do believe this stuff is for BP rifles & shotguns) oh well, I can sell it or trade it or give it away and make friends with someone. 

On that second inside go round I also spotted two more books and picked them up at decent prices - one was: Home Workshop Guns For Defense And Resistance - Volume One The Submachine Gun and the other was: the original (not the revised edition) of The Ruger 1022 Exotic Weapons Systems (both put out by the now defunct Paladin Press). I later found a copy of the former with an asking price of about $143.00 on eBay. It cost me $4.00. Two pages are loose but at that price it was - as they say in certain parts of Brooklyn - such a deal; so, how could I not take it! The Ruger 10/22 book is in fine to excellent condition and tells you how to modify a 10/22 enough to get yourself arrested as a federal felon.

That was it for me. They had lots and lots of stuff for sale but almost everything, from bedroom furniture, to kitchen utensils, to coffee tables, to farm tools, to electronics, to firearms & accessories seemed way overpriced. I may go back on day 3 or 4 to see what is left over and what prices they will accept then on any remaining items that strike my fancy; my guess is plenty will be remaining as an awful lot of folks walked away from this sale empty handed.

All the best,
Glenn B