I have a hard time seeing anything that is meant to be collectible as special. And I don’t particularly see it as an heirloom either. It’s special because they tell you it is, not because it actually is.

Good question.

IMO, the guns a person leaves behind says a lot about the person's outdoor interests and may also reflect on their overall success in life. They demonstrate a person's ability to acquire items of quality and performance, along with their dedication to care for and maintain that which they own. I have rifles in my safe that I take the woods often, and one or two others that I have taken a single deer and may never remove from the safe again. They and the box they each came in will go to a family member who will hopefully take equal pride in owning them. And that may require passing them down when I can no longer use and care for them in the proper way.

Simply put, I want my guns to tell my kids I worked hard to buy the best I could afford and made sure I took good care of everything I owned.

Special is what you make it. That is a nice rifle and with or without some history it would make a nice one to pass down.

Why would anyone buy a painting just to hang it on the wall and look at it?

As an investment. I saw a shotgun at Cabela's Fort Worth a couple of years ago that had a price tag with $125,000 written on it. I'd wager that the guy who bought it paid a bit less than that, but expects it to be worth several thousand more than he paid for it somewhere down the road. I have no way of knowing, but I'll bet it's now in a safe or a vault somewhere now and probably never has had a shotshell in either of its chambers.

Some people don’t get it. That’s fine. Others do, and that is also fine. Variety is the spice of life. I thoroughly enjoy beautiful firearms. I don’t need any justification for their purchase or amount of use. Some day, my boys will squabble over what little I’ve left behind for them. If I have succeeded in their raising, they’ll have a similar mindset towards inheritance as I do, in that they only care about the guns. When a man takes a rifle afield and proudly proclaims it as his fathers, it should be a nice looking weapon, I think. I have a rifle to fit that bill, and now that I think about it, I had better acquire 3 more, at least. There’s no telling how many more stray kids my wife will drag into our home.

Yup. I grew up looking at rifles and shotguns in a gunrack. When I'm not hunting, I enjoy shooting them. If I'm not shooting, I can enjoy looking at them. To me there's a lot more to gun ownership than what it does when you pull the trigger. The whole experience, from smelling Hoppe's No.9 in my gun room to walking up and surveying a kill, is what I love about this hobby.

Classic.

IDK ive never purchased a painting.

I want my son to look at my guns and say "Damn, dad got everything he could out of these tools."

I want whoever ends up with my guns to say "damn, these are in fine shape considering he owned these for 140 years!"

It's a nice rifle but i don't think its worth 2k. I don't understand buying a rifle to keep in a safe, i have rifles that will be handed down..... with stories about the hunting trips they have been on and the animals "papaw" has taken with them.

Rolex vs Timex