Just a big Thankyou to Shaun Hopwood who is the driving force behind the organisation of the Trade Fair at The Pheonix Meeting.

Sword & Musket was outside in our own tent again, and that’s nothing to do with complaints from my fellow traders about my rich vegetarian dietary intake. One likes it outside, in the fresh air, and there was plenty of that around – passing through the tent at around 35 mph. Luckily I had taken with me some extra tent pegs and was able to keep the tent at least on terra-ferma.  A year or so ago when I took my own “Party-Style” tent I remember nocanantly hanging on the the tent for dear life as I tried to look as unconcerned as possible while discussing the varrious ins and out of the .30-06 Springfield and, wondering at what point, 13.1/2 stone of English/German was going into national air space whilst attached to a flimsy white tent.

Altough I went up there not expect much I was pleasantly surprised and altogether, takings are about the same as last year. Quality sells.

Basecamp

And thats the point really, it is what has been lurking at the back of our skulls for a long time. This stuff does not go down in value, its not like buying a new car, and watching the value decrease just for taking it of the dealers hands and tidying up his forecourt. These items are mostly investments. Ok, so you buy from a dealer and he gets his cut, so that might result in you having to produce a little more of the redies than you had originally planned, but, if you have bought well, concentrated on quality and put some research into your area of interst the item in question is going to increase in value.

Not that I deal in many deacts, but I found myself having to adjust my back up knowledge today when I found out that the humble Bren gun has doubled in price in the past four years. At one point they swamped the market but now that is not the case, rareity pushes value.  Now put the same scinario against one of the many military bolt actions from the last war and multiply by a much higher factor and you start to get the picture.

This was all bourne out by the high level of interest in the rifles on the stand over the weekend. The Springfields that I stock may have been the top end of the Military Rifle collector/shooters budget for a long time, but even they now are getting caught up with by some of the other marques.

Although fun, cheap, slightly battered bolt actions will always eventually sell, there is always going to be a place for the quality pieces at the top end of the scale. I’m not a financial advisor but Classic quality goods always hold their value, and the fewer of them around the steeper the scale of monatary increase.

If you couple that comfortable feeling of rock steady investment, with the fun had trying to master the art of shooting one of these venerable weapons, (and you find out it isn’t as easy as the filmakers would have us beleive) then it makes for a pretty interesting past time.

Looks like I had better stop waffling and find some more goodies to bring into the country………

See you at Birmingham on June 12th

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