Nostalgia Sold (and Spoken) Here!

Stop and think for a moment when you are having the rest of that almost-cold coffee. How many jobs do you do that are not strictly repair jobs but have come in because of a love affair that your customer has with his gun? This love affair is likely based on nostalgia of the "good old days" when he was a kid and shooting his first squirrel, rabbit, deer, or pheasant—just as his father or grandfather did—and passed the gun on to him.

There are a lot of memories attached to that firearm and as your customer (and the gun) ages, greater nostalgia sets in, increasing every time he picks it up and lets his mind roam back through the days when he knew his grandfather and helped pick the ducks that grandpa shot with that old gun. He remembers sitting with grandpa in the blind and watching him knock those Northern Pintails down with that old gun and Ajax Heavies.

If there ever was a reason to skip school it was the opening of duck season with grandpa and skip he did. Never got in much trouble over that because the school principal was in another blind across the lake and if anyone understood the value of someone being on that lake on opening day, old Mr. Simmons surely did. Wonder what ever happened to that old 10 gauge Parker he used? The gun went to dad when grandpa left for the happy hunting ground.

Dad was awfully busy making mortgage payments and such so he couldn’t spend as much time as grandpa. Somehow hunting got put aside. Perhaps your customer yearns to get back into hunting to relive fond memories—or just for solitude and a chance to be in the field alone with anew bird dog showing great promise and good taste in hunting.

Perhaps he had succumbed to the attraction of more modern guns and semi-automatics that allowed him to see how many quick rounds he could rapid fire until he wised up and realized he wasn’t getting a chance to fire two or three rounds at a grouse or pheasant, perhaps while ignoring the fact that his manual repeater was a perfectly fine enough rifle for deer hunting. Why bother carrying a gas operated gun when all that is needed for a pleasant day afield was a double?

And reminiscing remembers that he has grandpa’s old double and that it would be great ducks and turkeys. Perhaps after finding it snuggled up in the attic along with a dozen or so of the old wood decoys, it was rusty, stock-scratched, and obviously a wellused field gun. Looking it over brings back more memories. Being more knowledgeable about guns now, your customer realizes grandpa had bought a good gun and, like old wine, it gets better with age although it needed to be brought back to life.

Here is apiece of metal that he knew well, understood, and it can talk to him. No one or nothing contains as many fond memories as that old gun does but it is sick. So where to go, what to do, and who can help? Who breathes new life to an old gun and helps with such nostalgia? You do. You understand his desires. You probably have a similar story from your past. I sure do.

He will tell you his story, a little at a time until he sees that you understand and are capable of walking through that door of time, that door of yesterday, and he suddenly realizes that here is a person not unlike himself. He wants it restored and refinished for he is going to use it to write yet another chapter in his life. It is his key to yesterday. It doesn’t matter that he may likely be able to buy and use a newer "better" gun for the same or even less cost.

He wants this gun because this is the one he remembers. As a gunsmith, you benefit by helping him bring that back while getting a job that is not only profitable but shows you area decent and understanding human being. If you will put a little love of your own into the job, your customer will be most appreciative. Will he use the gun after you have restored it, just like in the good old days? Nope! Well, maybe.

But it may also end up in his cabinet or gun rack, perhaps to be taken out and shot once or twice on occasion. The important thing will be that grandpa is made well and reincarnated. It is almost sacred and that’s the way it will stay. You benefit because the gun is now his showpiece and as often as he can he will show it and tell everyone how old it is and yet was able to be brought back to life.

It will have sharpened his memories and you’ll have brought color to what where black and white pictures of grandpa and the happy times of his youth. Nostalgia is apart of our business. We are partners with it. Don’t forget it. Your customers won’t. AG