Did any of you buy this 1920 National Match 1903?

[Fred]

Back in April of 2010, this 1920 National Match 03 was auctioned for $1,150.00. It was listed as just a Springfield Model 1903 Service Rifle. Of course it's Not just a service rifle. Somebody won a Minty 1920 National Match 1903 Springfield. Holy cow, it would pay to keep one's eyes open for such unnoticed treasures. I wonder if the person who bought it knows what they have? Here's the link below to the auction.

http://www.cowanauctions.com/auctions/item.aspx?ItemId=77766

[Rick the Librarian]

Fred, it amazes me the number of good rifles still out there. In a previous RIA auction, there were several NRA Sales rifles that went for relatively modest prices (one, I recall that had a few relatively minor "issues" and went for the $600-700 range).

The thing is, you have to almost have to have a "career" of watching all these sales and auctions, then hope that they go for reasonable prices. In my case, add to that, I am retired and the amount of money I have to spend is severely limited. In most cases, buying a really nice rifle requires me to get rid of another rifle, sometimes more than one. For example, the low numbered RIA I purchased a few months ago - I had to trade a NRA Sales rifle I had plus raise some money besides. I was fortunate (or unfortunate, depending how you look at it) that my older brother passed away and left me some "disposable" money, which allowed me to get a Lend Lease M1, but I only had one brother, so that won't happen again! If it were up[ to me (and I had Bill Gates' money) I'd have a collection of M1903s to rival Springfield Armory, but it just won't happen! (Darn, it!). :D

I'm not trying to evoke pity -- as most of you "old timers" know, I've managed to collect, over the years, a very nice collection of M1903s and other rifles, of which I am proud. I'm just saying it can get kind of complicated trying to follow all these sales and auctions and I'm not surprised that several good deals fall through the cracks.

[Fred]

Yea, I know what you mean Rick. I'm retired and pretty much have nothing that I absolutely have to do (except stay white and die) and I miss out on a lot of great bargains. Finding them doesn't do any good unless I have the available cash to pursue them. That's why I dig into my pocket every now and again to buy a powerball ticket. Heck, if I were to win several hundred million bucks, I'd spend it on fine 1903 Springfields, single malt scotch, a new pair of sneakers, relieving the suffering of lost, injured and abused animals and probably just blow the rest on buying old guns for friends who couldn't otherwise ever afford them. That means going to all the big gun shows every year. Now that's Fun! Outside of that, I can't think of anything else I'd do with it. I sure as hell wouldn't ever put on a tie or stress my life over working. But being retired and married to a really rich woman, I don't do that anyway. Lol. Come to think of it, except for being able to buy guns for my friends, I guess I've got the rest of it covered.
Seriously, if my wife allowed me to spend our money on antique guns without restriction, I'd probably get bored. I don't have a burning desire to own a great number of them. Four or five is probably all I can personally keep excited about. Honest injun, any more than that would be overstimulation! I don't even shoot the ones I have now.

[Fred]

Rick, immediately after I received my 1920 National Match 03 for my late birthday present, my wife went out and bought herself a new car so that she didn't feel left out of things. Sigh... that was some expensive rifle. :icon_rolleyes:
I'm starting to feel that she only bought me the rifle so that I'd just have to go along with the car. :icon_scratch: This was my 5th 1903 and it was also the 5th car she's bought for the family. I don't think that I should be looking at any more 03's for awhile. :icon_confused:
Well, maybe I can just Look.

[Rick the Librarian]

...and if you buy a car, what would she buy?? (I guessed a yacht, until I remember you lived far away from any large bodies of water!! :D

[Fred]

Oh heck, don't give her any ideas! No, neither she or I are inclined to spend money on anything so useless or impractical for our existence. Even the vehicles we've bought are essential out here. The two H3 Hummers are not the big H2's with 8 cylinders that burn up gas like flushing a toilet every time you push down on the gas peddle. They each have 5 cylinders that give us all the power we need to move and yet still give us around 20 MPG on the highway. They're also necessary, with the proper tires, to allow us to survive out here in the country during the Nebraska winters. It can get 40 to 60 below zero out here then and the snow drifts on these country roads can be 8 ft. high. before we got them, we had to use the tractor to scrape away the driveway that runs up our 1/8th mile long driveway to our house on a very steep hill. Nothing short of an all 4 wheel drive vehicle can make it up or down then. These H3's have 12 different gears of 4 wheel drive and nothing less. No 2 wheel drive at all. We use them occasionally to chase down, cut off and herd our 14 horses, all Tennessee Walkers, back through openings in the fences when they get out of the pastures and out onto the open country. That's when the H3's capacity to maneuver at full speed over open ground really pays off. When we had twice that many, the Remuda was still easy to keep together, out maneuver and herd at running speed. It's a lot easier to do so with a vehicle than while riding another horse! The other three vehicles are all Chevy Sparks. They get around twice the gas mileage as the H3's and they have one heck of a lot of room inside. They're not an expensive car and our two kids who are going to college now each have a reliable and safe vehicle to get around in as well as allow them to safely make the long drive home to visit us. The last and most recent Spark is a 2014 that we (she) decided to get for ourselves because we (she) enjoyed driving the other two that are STILL ours (hers) and because it's perfect for long drives on our vacations and trips to visit relatives as well as also being economical for my wife to drive the 250 miles to and from work each week. We figure that she can use the little car on good days and one of the H3's when there's a lot of snow and ice on the roads. Another thing that we liked about the 2014 Chevy Spark was that the advanced and very smooth gear system of the transmission in it was actually designed by Leonardo Da Vinci over 450 years ago. It's really something.
Funny about that body of water issue out here in Nebraska... what they call a lake out here is nothing more than a huge pit left over in the sandy bottoms where they've quarried sand out for export and then filled back in with water and afterwards built houses around it with docks in their back yards. Being from Missouri, I call them ponds. The locals all call them lakes. Heck, they don't know what a lake is. I could throw a rock over any body of water in the state of Nebraska. I wouldn't be surprised to see somebody stick a big ol yacht in one of these ponds around here just like the one in that last scene in the movie Second Hand Lions. No kidding, I can see it happening.

[Doug Douglass]

Years ago I mentioned to my wife we should buy a few colt SSA's in the box as an investment......she said B.S. .....and we put the money in the market....lost thousands....and thousands....then she said we should have bought the guns. Oh well, I still have my military collectables. In fact I sold three to buy her a new car.