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Subject: "GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk"     Previous Topic | Next Topic
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Conferences Gun of the Week Topic #84
Reading Topic #84, reply 11
Gryphonadmin
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Aug-25-17, 04:39 PM (EDT)
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11. "RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk"
In response to message #10
 
   >And that really seems to
>annoy them, because they don't want to see, say, a 1955 Rolls Royce
>Silver Cloud with an engine and a body that has reproduced,
>non-factory-original parts that were machined in the sixties,
>seventies, eighties, nineties, oughts, and today in it; they want to
>see the thing in as close to minty fresh condition with all-original
>parts and finish as humanly possible.
>
>It's about authenticity for them, I think. Like, if they know it isn't
>"authentic" that diminishes their enjoyment and their perception of
>the things value.

Oh sure, and classic car people are the worst in terms of being obsessive about that kind of thing. Well, some of them. A lot of people restoring a 1955 Chevrolet for at-least-semi-regular use will likely be amenable to making certain updates to the package, for a variety of reasons—to improve safety, or reliability, or quality-of-life for the user, or simply because the original version is no longer available or very hard to find. Only someone truly determined to wear the hairshirt of originality is going to source and equip bias-ply tires or one of the old tar-top car batteries, because they're scarce, they're expensive when you can find them, and—let's not mince words here—they're shit.

The cold, hard fact of the matter is that automobiles in the mid-1950s were dangerous as hell and didn't work very well into the bargain. One band of classic car enthusiasts is about the form factor, and seems to improve everything else to something as close to a modern standard of function and safety as technology and budget will allow. (Jonathan Ward of ICON is probably the most extreme example of this clade I can think of offhand, in terms of the lengths and expenses to which he and his clients are willing to go in service of that ethos. He also has a bangin' YouTube channel if you're into that kind of thing.)

Now, I'm biased in this regard, because I agree very much with that philosophy. Ward's "Derelict" concept is close to my classic-car Platonic ideal, although there are much less elaborate/expensive approaches that are also pretty cool. (Also, heh, in the video I just linked, he specifically mentions pissing off the purists with regards to an upcoming project on a '50s Rolls. :)

On the other extreme, you have the really hardcore fundamentalists, the Wahhabists of car restoration, who accept none of that business. They drive—well, they don't drive, more often than not, but—on bias-ply tires, despite the fact that those are stupidly hard to find and not very safe; they use the original, unreliable electronics; they eschew added convenience or safety features of any kind. They even grudge the use of maintenance parts that aren't original-vintage—it's new-old-stock or nothin'. I... don't get those people. People didn't drive on bias-ply tires in the 1950s because they were good, they did it because nothing better was available. As soon as something better was available, they stopped.

The true extremists in that part of the car scene don't drive their cars, though, anyway. They take them from show to show in climate-controlled trailers, like expensive show horses. Cars that are kept like that are only one step below museum collection items, in that they do at least get to leave the building sometimes, but they aren't really cars any more. And in some cases, I agree, that's fine:

>To an extent, I sympathize. For me, it's going to very much be on a
>case-by-case basis. The general rule of thumb I have is, if the thing
>is just a thing, and there are plenty other extant examples of the
>thing, go nuts. But if the thing is important for reasons other
>than just being a thing, or there are very few things left, do not use
>the thing; make a repro and use that.

Oh, sure. Some things are museum pieces because they have to be. I wouldn't advocate flying the Spirit of St. Louis, for instance, for a couple of different reasons. It's historically precious and the only one of its kind, which checks both of the boxes. If you have an airworthy Waco GXE—an aircraft of a similar vintage, but of which there were more than 1,600—on the other hand...

>You know what shouldn't be used? The specific Deringer that
>John Wilkes Booth used to kill Lincoln. That... that should probably
>be purely preserved and never actually, you know, fired again.

As an aside to this, one of my favorite historical tidbits (which I think I might have mentioned before, and which will almost certainly come up again in a future Gun of the Week) is that Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated President James Garfield in 1881, gave some thought to how his gun would look in a museum afterward. This was used as evidence of premeditation in his trial, and has amused me in a dark sort of way ever since I first heard about it—particularly since, in a sort of O. Henry twist, the gun was stolen from the Smithsonian and has not been seen since.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
 GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk [View All] Gryphonadmin Aug-22-17 TOP
   RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk ebony14 Aug-22-17 1
      RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-22-17 2
      RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Peter Eng Aug-22-17 3
   RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk JFerio Aug-23-17 4
      RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-23-17 5
          RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk zwol Aug-24-17 6
              RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-24-17 9
                  RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk MuninsFire Aug-25-17 12
                  RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk SneakyPete Aug-28-17 16
          RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk JFerio Aug-24-17 7
              RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-24-17 8
                  RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Mercutio Aug-25-17 10
                     RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-25-17 11
                      RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk JFerio Aug-26-17 15
                  RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk CdrMike Aug-25-17 13
                      RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-25-17 14
                          RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk CdrMike Aug-29-17 17
                              RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-29-17 18
                                  RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk CdrMike Aug-29-17 19
                                      RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-29-17 20
                                          RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk ejheckathorn Aug-29-17 21
                                              RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk Gryphonadmin Aug-29-17 23
                                          RE: GotW 53: Ruger Super Blackhawk CdrMike Aug-29-17 22


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