10/11/10

Well, that weekend could have gone better. But, on the other hand, it could have gone a lot worse as well. In fact, it probably went only slightly shy of mediocre. Here is what went down. Saturday morning I picked John up at 0730 h and we headed to the shop. We unloaded Ms. Clio's old wheels and began loading all of Nadine's spares. Jeff showed up to hook up to the trailer around 0830 h and we all headed out. John and I went to the British car swap meet and hung out for a bit. The dude buying my parts began suggesting that I'd probably make more money by selling the stuff piecemeal. It kind of sounded like he was backing out of the deal but when I finally said, “Look, you know what all these parts are worth individually. I don't. To me they are worth the $1,000.00 you offered so I'd like to do the lump sum sale.” He was cool with that but wanted to wait until the rest of the folks had left since they would be the ones buying the stuff from him eventually. Besides, he didn't have his check book. I told him John and I needed to go look at a couple 510s for sale and that we’d be back at noon. We headed out to waste an hour and a half. We waited for Campo Verde to open and had some Mexican food. Eventually we headed back and hung out while the last of the stragglers left. The guy ran home and got his check book and wrote one for me. Unfortunately it was past noon and all the banks were closed. John and I headed out with two pair of TR seats, two rigid and two folders, that we figured could make some “Bomber Style” seats for something. Oh, I also got a couple books on restoring and modifying TRs. We stopped in at Military Gun Supply and had a quick look around. We didn't find anything we couldn't live without. I don't remember doing anything else before I dropped him off at home so I'm going to assume that was it. I went home too. Sunday morning I rounded up all the .410 ammo and the Mossberg shotgun. I decided I'd take it to the gun show with a $300.00 price tag on all of it and see what kind of interest it drew. I met Larry at the Credit Onion and we rolled to the show in his truck. I remembered to print up a sign to wear telling folks what I had and what I wanted for it. The plan was: if no one showed interest (or wound up buying the gun and ammo actually), I'd borrow the $430.00 from Larry to buy a Magnum Judge. If I did sell the stuff for over $250.00, I'd look for a long-barreled or “Skeleton Stocked” Saiga. On the first row a dude offered me $250.00 for all of it. I said I'd let him know but that I'd just gotten there. On the second row another dude offered $250.00 for it. I said the same thing to him. On the third row I got an offer of $275.00 and took it. Yeah, I probably could have held out and gotten the full three bills, but I was already tired of messing with it. I hadn't seen any Saigas on the first three rows so we didn't have to go back. I began shopping. I saw a few interesting things, but nothing really drew my attention much... until, I saw the long-barreled Saiga leaning on the dude’s rack. It even had the scope mount already. I looked at the tag, expecting to see it was a .223, but it was a .308! Just what I was kind of thinking about looking for. The price was fair and it came with some extras. I walked away. We finished walking the show, after taking off to go have burgers at Dairy Queen, and I went back to find “my” .308 Saiga. I found it but the price was $25.00 more than I thought I'd remembered. Meh, what’s $25.00? A down loaded Miley Cyrus song? A small cup of Star Buck’s coffee? I don't know. Anyhoo, we walked away one more time. Larry wanted to look at some other stuff again, and so did I. Eventually we went back a third time. The actual owner of the gun was there this time and we talked. I asked, “How used is it?” He said, “About 100 rounds.” I asked if he’d take $425.00 and he countered with $430.00. I agreed and bought it. While Larry looked at something else, I bought 80 rounds of what I thought was Wolf ammo and three twenty-round storage boxes. Turns out one of the Wolf boxes contained twenty rounds in Winchester brass. I'm not sure if I was ripped off or got a bonus. We eventually left and he dropped me off at my car. I went home and started playing with my new toy. But I'll tell y'all about that tomorrow.