But sometimes, there's something really interesting, and it makes this all worthwhile.
Most gun makes and types are not really collected. They are used, then used up, then disappear. Issue weapons from countries without a strong firearms culture, or for whom the US — the biggest market for collectors — doesn't much care about, get really, really worn out, or neglected, or both.
The oldest of the Spanish Star pistols are well over 100 years old now, but they are mostly pretty rarely encountered. Even museum pieces are often quite worn, or damaged. Let's take the Model 1922 pistol, the first of the "1911-clone" (wrong!) Stars, issued based on a string of revised requirements to the Guardia Civil, then made into the commercial model A, and re-chambered to the commercial model B and so if they were collected, pretty historically interesting guns (they also got up to some good wars, saw some action that should be legend but... is just lost).
Well, a reader shared with me this Guardia-stamped Model 1922, with the original box, the other day.
When he started asking, based on the info provided, I said "model A, next!" and then the date codes didn't make sense, so he sent photos. Yup, it's a 96 year old gun in almost unbelievable shape, especially for an issued pistol. With the original Guardia stamped magazines even.
It is so nice, it's replaced images of much more worn guns on the Model A page. This sort of stuff makes collecting the un-collectible guns like Stars worth it. These sorts of guns are uninteresting to the US collector community, so often command maybe a $20 premium over the normal $2-400 price of a Model A/B, or may be regarded as old and weird, and can be had for a song.
Keep your eyes open!
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