Winchester 1897

We begin with the gun, a Findy Sickle piece, celebrating its 111th birthday this year, born only three years after William Randolph Hearst started the Spanish-American war in order to allow Teddy Roosevelt to become president.

Winchester Model 1897, serial number C158xxx, one of about one million examples of this design from the brain of John M. Browning, PBUH. It is long-tomish with a 32-inch barrel, full choked in 12 gauge. (Boys, ya wanna see my bran' new goose gun?)


I've owned a few of them over the years, generally picked up as lagniappe  in multi-gun swaps or from folks who just didn't care to have rusty old guns cluttering the place. I bought them cheap, enjoyed them for a little while, and swapped them off. The only real attraction for me is the connection with my earliest days in the field, the times before I was allowed to carry a gun, that awkward stage when a little  boy was trusted to walk along in the line of  party-hunting adults as a sort of bi-pedal pheasant flusher, actually cheaper than a good dog because the folks were stuck with feeding me anyway. A fair number of the adults carried Model 97s. The majority, armed only with single-shot H&Rs  and the like, were jealous of the six-shot firepower. We bare-handed kids were even more so.

One other thing. I loved the exposed hammer, and I still do -- on any firearm -- despite their snagginess and mostly mythical safety flaws.The ability to see at the briefest glance that the gun is ready or not ready to go bang is part of my personal   security blanket.

---

(Isn't that a whole lot of wind about a common old gun, Jim? Especially one pretty well clapped out from a century of rattling around in duck boats and Model-A trunks?)

Yeah, I guess so, but it gives me a chance to bloviate on the transaction which brought her to the Camp J Armory.

We were at Cabela's in the northern Minneapolis slurbs. It's sort of a tradition when the family gathers in St. Cloud. We never buy much, but I do like wandering aisles and marveling at how many thousands of dollars folks are urged to spend in pursuit of the simple outdoor life. (Remind me to report on the absolutely indispensable $75 walking stick one of these days.)

This time, Number Two Grandson and I went directly to the gun section. The first thing catching my eye was the '97, and I idly checked the price tag. Ahem. $99?? I can make a buck on that. Or maybe, at that price,  it would be nice to grace the wall under the Maynard Reese (Nine Travelers --Canada Geese  708/950.)

I took it to a clerk who popped the trigger lock so I could see how bad the action was. The forearm was chipped, and its screws to action bar were missing. That's it. It would go bang. I frowned disgustedly anyway. The clerk said, "Maybe we can do something about the price."


Eh? Dicker in a Big Box?? I will be damned.

So I pretended to examine it in greater detail, sighing knowledgeably while finger-tapping the deeper dings.

"Well, if $70 will buy it, I'll take it."  Clerk and gun disappear for a couple of minutes.

"Seventy is fine."

He directed me to the computer  where I entered the 4473 information, permitting the Cabela's Bureaucratic Compliance Officer to check me out with Eric Holder and, not so incidentally, with all of the credit bureaus. Cabala's is smart. The same information that squares me with the BATFEIEIO justifies me with the usury industry, but I didn't think of that at the time.

The paperwork was cleared and I reached for "money" in the form of Federal Reserve Cartoons. Mr. Clerk stopped me. "Sir, you have been pre-approved for a Cabela's Visa card. "

"No thanks."


"But it comes with a $20 gift certificate."


"Uhhh,  does that mean I can deduct the $20 from the price of this gun."


"Yes sir. It does."


"Okay."

And that's how I walked out of a giant super store with a $50* Model 1897 Winchester and a brand new credit card with a limit astronomically high  considering my unimpressive personal circumstances.  In this narrow matter, I am even smarter than Cabela's because the plastic is and will remain TDY in a forgotten drawer corner.

Minor gunsmithing to ensue, followed by a nostalgic bout of scattering small pieces of toxic lead around the countryside. It's okay. No condors in these here parts.

---



*(Plus, of course, $3.50 for the state which, I am convinced, will use the money to further its efforts to persuade every Minnesota driver he or she is operating the only vehicle on the road.)

To the tune of "Yes We Have No Bananas."

"Hot damn I have beaten Bernanke;
I beat Ben Bernanke today."

---

It's a lovely morning, cool, light overcast, pleasant breeze. So I assigned myself to dawn patrol, just for the delight of being out in the country side. On my way back to Rally Point J I stopped to make a small purchase. On arrival here I tossed the change on the table, one nickel, four pennies. Then, a fresh cup of coffee at hand, i examined the coins of the realm. The nickel automatically went to the nickel jug, repository of coins worth the government advertised price, or nearly so.

Leaving four pennies on which I beat the odds. Three of them were pre-1982, mostly copper, hence worth 2.2 cents each measured against the fraudulent zincs foisted on us early in the reign of the Keynesian Ronald Reagan.

The commodity value bonus on the $1.78 purchase was thus 3.6 cents (.012x3) or slightly more than 2 per cent. And before you start laughing at me, let me state as a fact that the 2 per cent is 20 times greater in one day than Ben is paying for a full year on my savings account. (Yes, Ben. He's just using my bank as a middle man.)

The zinc went into a larger container  with dimes and quarters, The Cup of Despair. Periodically it is emptied into a bank account, my Certificate of Concession. (Nominal return is as low as 1/10 of 1 per cent, translating to a loss of about 1.9 per cent per year in purchasing power -- even accepting the official lies about the inflation rate.)


---

Sorting pennies is not something about which a guy should get obsessive, but it's one manner of idling away a minute or two when there's nothing good on the internet. And, over time, it gives you a gloatable feeling of investment wisdom.

Why, just last week I weighed my stash of copper pennies and nickels and discovered I own coinage containing more than eleven pounds of copper. Even in the temporarily depressed metal market that amounts to a whopping $35. Next time I see a cute babe at the end of the bar I'm gonna sidle up and ask her what color car she wants.



    .

I don't exactly feel sorry for John Boehner, but there is a little twinge of something like sympathy. He just left a podium where he attempted to explain to a group of media personalities that:

The Supreme Court ruled that the health-care law was constitutional. The court did not rule that it was a good idea.


If you can somewhow get a dollar for every time that distinction is made between now and election day, you'll probably wind up with enough money for a Big Gulp and pack of Twinkies.

...a fine time to leave me, Lucille

I call my giveadamner "Lucille."  In the dark of night she left me, heedless of the demands of this "Momentous Day."

Will the Supreme Court maim Obamacare and guffaw as the bodies pile up outside emergency rooms across this great nation?

The prevailing AmSoc notion is that my health is your responsibility. It is bipartisan. We're quibbling only about whose turn it is to buy this round of lime-flavored hemlock.