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PREFACE

It is unlikely that a work of this kind, with its vast use of numbers and dates, will be errorless. Such errors brought to my attention will be corrected in future editions, if any.

The extensive use of references and communications is to credit the knowledge and work of others. If I have fallen short on this account, it was not willful.

The valuation of guns, though of great interest to all, has been studiously excluded. In some quarters of western life, “the excess of price over value is the true test of success in life,” an unworthy fact of life. However, in the case of rare or unique guns, the intrinsic value is seldom the price negotiated between buyer and seller. Why? Because the human culture surrounding these artifacts of wood and steel has a value of its own, often far greater than the work itself.

When it comes to valuation, knowledge is the coin of the realm, and, in some measure, this book may help.

Ronald S. Gabriel Los Angeles, California, August 2003