Free Republic

"100-year-old's car restored as tribute to him and his late wife" When John Ball purchased a classic Ford Consul sedan from Vic Gamble in Wales, U.K., he didn’t just get a car, but also a story. Gamble told him bought it in 1960 while on vacation with his wife when their car broke down and that they went on to take trips in it for over half a century. After Elma died five years ago, Gamble frequently drove it to visit her grave. When he finally had to let it go in 2017, he unwittingly sold it to the right...

Dirty little secrets are rarely this big. An eclectic car, motorcycle and parts collection discovered after the May 2018 death of a Michigan man who had amassed it over the years is heading to the auction block. According to VanDerBrink Auctions, Jeff Begg was an engineer who worked for Dana Corporation, founded several manufacturing companies of his own and fell under the spell of eBay when he was closing out his wife’s account following her passing in 2003.

With both the ‘old’ 1994 Assault Weapon’s Ban (AWB) and the looming specter of a new one for 2013, there are several unlikely firearms out there that are caught up in the flakiness of this type of legislation. Many of these are arms that were perfectly legal when they were designed and sold mail order to your grandfathers. Today, if these heirlooms are in your gun rack, pending actions by Washington could mean they are now unforeseen targets. John Browning’s Model 8 In 1900, John Moses Browning invented a long recoil-operated semi-automatic rifle that uses a rotating bolt. Chambered for...

<p>A debt collector, angered that a disabled US Army veteran was living off of disability payments, told him he “should have died” in war instead of "taking advantage of" other Americans.</p> <p>“If you would have served our country better you would not be a disabled veteran living off Social Security while the rest of us honest Americans work our asses off,” one of the agency’s debt collectors allegedly told the vet. “Too bad, you should have died.”</p>

Apache Junction, AZ --(Ammoland.com)- The 9.4 Dutch Revolver was brought out in 1873 and it has been somewhat difficult to find information in English about this unique duty revolver. Sometimes called the Chamelot-Delvigne revolver it was known as the M73 OM and the model 73 NM both being 6 shots. The old model has an octagon barrel while the new model’s is round. There is also a KLM model 5 shot with an octagon barrel. It is a small frame revolver that is double action resembling a small 38 in size. A company called de Beaumont produced it until it...

(CBS News) EDGEWATER, N.J. - An auto repair shop owner was shocked to find out that a Mercedez-Benz he purchased for a customer used to belong to Adolf Hitler. "He was surprised," Zenop Tuncer, owner of Euro Tech Motors, told CBS News. "We were all surprised!" Tuncer, whose shop specializes in classic cars, got a request from real estate developer Fred Daibes that he wanted a Mercedes-Benz 540K. However Tuncer could only procure a 1942 Mercedes 320 Cabriolet D convertible, which Daibes agreed to buy. Tuncer said he should have been tipped off because the car looked like a military...

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. - A Fergus Falls man who called himself a "soul collector" has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for attacking his neighbor. Forty-three-year-old Timothy Eugene Peterson was accused of trying to cut off his neighbor's toes and scalp him last January, in order to "collect his soul." The attack left Ivan "Skip" Mallas with multiple stab wounds. Peterson pleaded guilty to assault in July. Other counts were dismissed. KSAX-TV reports Peterson was given credit for 297 days for time served. He was also ordered to pay $731 in restitution and court fees.

Attention, pack rats: science may have figured you out. Researchers say they've found an area of the brain that seems to govern the urge to collect. For most people, collecting is a perfectly healthy behavior. It's an outlet for expressing passion for just about anything, such as stamps, wine, art, shoes, or Elvis memorabilia. Collecting is also common among animals, and not just for food. It's been observed in creatures great and small, from mammals to insects. For instance, some birds can't resist aluminum and bright objects, while hamsters gather glass beads when given the chance. But in rare cases,...

We first learned of John Shipley when he was busted for illegal gun dealing. From "The Newspaper of Record": An F.B.I. agent in El Paso has been arrested and charged with dealing guns, some of which ended up being used in gunfights between the authorities and drug dealers in Mexico, law enforcement officials said. Except it wasn't "some" that "ended up being used in gunfights...in Mexico": SO FAR SHIPLEY HAS ONLY BEEN LINKED TO THAT ONE GUN RECOVERED IN CHIHUAHUA. And how did it get there? SHIPLEY ALLEGEDLY RESOLD THE GUN TO FORMER EL PASO COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPUTY ARMANDO RODRIGUEZ...RODRIGUEZ...

A jewel in his collection is the German Panzer V Panther tank that the German army sank in a Polish river during World War II to keep it from the advancing Russians. The Panther sat submerged for decades, and Mr. Littlefield acquired it five years ago and began restoring it. "Restoration is very satisfying, especially with something like the Panther," Mr. Littlefield said in a 2007 interview with The Chronicle. "People say: 'You'll never get that thing running again.' Well, it was built once, and we can do it again."

Sayles, a south Missouri coin collector and dealer, is suing the Washington bureaucracy. He insists its unprecedented decision to restrict imports of ancient coins of Cyprus is “a major offensive” against collectors like him.

Lillian B. Gottschalk, who collected hundreds of antique toy cars and wrote a well-regarded book on the subject, has died. She was 84. The Westlake Village resident died July 23 at a hospital from complications of kidney failure, said her son, H. William Gottschalk, of Calabasas. Gottschalk began amassing the toys in the 1960s, inspired by her husband's vintage car collection. "Her first one was a cast-iron car, and it cost maybe 25 or 50 cents," her son told the Los Angeles Times. The collection eventually included buses, taxis, ambulances, and tractors made of everything from paper to lead. Some...

Tomb of ancient coin collector unearthed www.chinaview.cn 2006-01-15 14:05:53 XI'AN, Jan. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Archaeologists in northwest China's Shaanxi Province have discovered an ancient tomb, possibly of a coin collector, dating back more than 600 years. During a recent excavation at a Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) tomb in the suburb of Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi, archaeologists found over 150 coins of different dynasties, together with 60 ceramic utensils. Twenty kinds of coins were in circulation in the dynasties of Tang (618-907), Song (960-1279) and Jin (1115-1234), spanning about 600 years. They might have been collected by the owner of the tomb...

PHILADELPHIA -- Four members of a Philadelphia family are facing aggravated assault charges for allegedly beating up a city trash collector. Richard Meyers says it started after he passed a house that didn't have its trash at the curb. Meyers says he and a co-worker were slowly following their city garbage truck, picking up trash bags, when a man yelled for the truck to stop after it passed his house. Meyers says the truck kept moving, although slowly enough for the man to put his trash in the back. Meyers says the man got angry -- then began hitting and...

WATERBURY -- It never dawned on William Bechard that the two old Smith & Wesson revolvers he found for sale earlier this year in the Bargain News would get him arrested. The classified advertisement newspaper led Bechard, 52, to a man in Hartford who was selling a .32-caliber revolver and a .38-caliber revolver. Bechard, of Waterbury, is an avid gun collector and trader who owns nearly 100 rifles and handguns, nearly all of them more than 50 years old. Bechard said he bought the two revolvers in April for about $300. The man Bechard bought the guns from called about...

Brazilian woman hands in 1,300 guns Sat 24 July, 2004 08:04 RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) - A Brazilian woman has surrendered an arsenal of about 1,300 firearms under the country's guns-for-money disarmament program that started last week. A federal police spokeswoman in the city of Sao Paulo said the woman, who will receive $65,600 (35,800 pounds) for the weaponry that ranged from muskets to mortar shells, told police she was the daughter of a late guns collector. Police transported the guns from her house under heavy escort on Friday and would not reveal her identity. Police across Brazil have...

Parents file lawsuit over Star Wars video Humiliation forced Quebec teenager to drop out of school, document says By TU THANH HA From Wednesday's Globe and Mail MONTREAL — The parents of Ghyslain Raza, the Quebec teenager who became a celebrity this spring after classmates posted on the Internet a video of him mimicking a Star Wars character, allege that their son was so humiliated by the experience that he had to get psychiatric care. The revelation is made in a lawsuit his parents have filed against the families of four classmates they accuse of maliciously turning their son into...

Paul Tucker demonstrates weapon parts that can easily be obtained through the mail. Tucker’s on a mission to keep the weapons out of the hands of terrorists. Brooks Sample/DFWCN photo Paul Tucker is not the kind of man who most people would expect to be involved in gun control. He's a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, member of the National Rifle Association, hunter, and avid gun collector. "I'm for the Second Amendment," the 57-year-old medical software developer and consultant said as he displayed World War II-era British Enfield rifles at his Collin County home. But the terrorism threat looming...