Mosin-Nagant M91/59

Several years ago I was looking for something to collect. I've always liked history, so I wanted something old and historically intersting. I thought about swords, but a Yahoo auction (remember those) for a WWII Russian Mosin Nagant rifle changed my direction. I didn't bid on the gun, which was a good thing because either some ignorant fool would have commited a felony by shipping it (and me by receiving it), or he would have asked me for my Class 03 FFL (federal collector of curios and relics license) and I would have said "Huh?" I eventually found an online gun dealer, Empire Arms who sold me an antique Turkish Mauser. (1898 and older is considered an antique and exempt from the prohibition on interstate firearms sales. The Mauser was made between 1893 and 1896.)

From there my focus went Russian. Something about owning a gun made in the Soviet Union was appealing - I have an unexplained nostalgia for the Evil Empire. I remember when things like SALT talks and SDI were making headlines and people were worrying about Russian ICBMs landing in their backyards. And all the while we never gave much thought to people like the tragic hero in the song. (If you're not listening to it, at least read the lyrics.) Maybe I just miss the days when I knew that the enemy wasn't going to attack because they wanted to live as much as we did -- unlike now. I didn't stop getting other nation's weapons, but it's the Russian stuff that interested me the most.

I won't go into creating an educational page here. There are plenty of places on the Internet to get a lesson in collectible guns. All I want to do is open a window into my personal interests, and perhaps show the world that just because a guy has a dozen or so rifles doesn't mean he's a nut.