Four Seasons Moving?

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According to the Woburn assesor's office, the property is owned by "PAONE ANTHONY K. SR."

That's true, except he's been dead for a few years. I was told by a former FS employee that Paone's kids weren't really interested in keeping his properties. Yes, he owned more than this building. I'm surprised it took this long for them to try and sell this building. I've mentioned to Carl on more than one occasion he should expand his store space. Each time I would mention it, he would tell me that it would drive up his overhead, thus his costs, and he would lose business.

Here's a snip from MassGIS;

upload_2019-5-17_22-48-18.png
 
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You should have been around when he was in that right front corner location. Now that was beyond cramped!
i'm remembering a four seasons in there pre carl, then he bought in from the original owner. am i mis-remembering this? or did carl have it from day 1? late 80's, early 90's about.
 
You should have been around when he was in that right front corner location. Now that was beyond cramped!

I’ve been trying to remember the first thing I bought from Carl. I think it was my 92FS. In any case, 4S was still in that front right space and, yes, it was very cramped!

R
 
i'm remembering a four seasons in there pre carl, then he bought in from the original owner. am i mis-remembering this? or did carl have it from day 1? late 80's, early 90's about.

I've known Carl for as long as he bought the business, maybe close to 25 years ago. Prior to him owning 4 Seasons, it was owned by a guy named Al, IIRC. Al ran the place with his 2 sons, and after he unexpectedly passed away, his sons ran it maybe for a year or two until Carl bought it.

No, you remember correctly. I posted this info in post #44.
 
I posted this info in post #44.
right, sorry, didn't see it.

i just went through my paperwork files and found a hand written receipt dated sept '95 for my p220. under salesman the name is al. i do remember the morning i was there with a friend, we each bought one. an older guy working, nice guy, and not a soul in there but us three. wow, times changed, huh? from no one to deli tickets.

i did buy another gun there before this, from the same guy. he said since i was the first customer of the day he'd take 50 bucks off the price of the gun i wanted...a smith mod 36.

don't know when al died but per my paperwork, he was alive at least until '95.
 
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right, sorry, didn't see it.

i just went through my paperwork files and found a hand written receipt dated sept '95 for my p220. under salesman the name is al. i do remember the morning i was there with a friend, we each bought one. an older guy working, nice guy, and not a soul in there but us three. wow, times changed, huh? from no one to deli tickets.

i did buy another gun there before this, from the same guy. he said since i was the first customer of the day he'd take 50 bucks off the price of the gun i wanted...a smith mod 36.

don't know when al died but per my paperwork, he was alive at least until '95.

You could have been Al's last customer. [laugh] Carl bought the business in 1995 (also mentions this on his website).

Carl Ingrao is well known to his customers and the Woburn, Mass., community; he purchased Four Seasons Firearms in 1995. Traditionally a strong seller of modern sporting rifles, he says that business has tailed off, while his handgun business remains decently brisk.

Handgun Selling Never StopsShooting Industry Magazine | Shooting Industry Magazine
 
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You could have been Al's last customer. [laugh] Carl bought the business in 1995 (also mentions this on his website).
maybe a crossover customer. [laugh] i'm looking at the receipt again...there's 2. looks like i paid a deposit and left 2 guns on consignment if i deciphered the sept invoice correctly. second invoice indicates i picked the gun up on nov 1st and also had $100 paid out to me at that time. the name paul is on that receipt.

hey, who knows, right? a little saturday morning four seasons trivia. [banghead]
 
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wow, times changed, huh? from no one to deli tickets.

I don't mind the deli tickets, beats the hell out of not knowing who's next in a room of 20 buyers. I can't keep track of how many rounds are left in my six-shooter at the range...

Plus: Maybe, Carl will start a "Deli Ticket" lottery. When your number gets called, put the ticket in a fish bowl, numbers called out on the top of the hour. Prizes could be:
50-round boxes of CCI .22 standard, trigger locks, targets, cleaning kits, 5% off what you are purchasing. I dunno. I'm pretty good at giving away other people's stuff. Politics?

 
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Why do people start unfounded rumors like this....

Because it's fun.


Anyone hear that ISOTOX likes to try and hold hands with people standing in line at McDonald's?? LOL



So about 40 years ago, my dad's best friend at work has a seizure at work. Turns out he's got this massive brain tumor. The next week, they operate. My dad was there with hte guy's wife and kids.

My dad goes into work the next day and is talking about the surgery. The tumor was, IIRC, right at teh crown of hte head. So he tells someone about it in his department.

At morning break, someone is relating the story BACK to him. Now it's in the back of his head.

Lunch - someone is telling him it's at hte base of his skull.

By afternoon break, someone pulls him aside (KNOWING HE WAS JOHN'S BEST FRIEND) and says, "Bill, did you hear about John? Damn. That's awful. So strange going up through the jaw like that. . . . "



I've been in organizations where someone OVERHEARS someone else talking about something completely unrelated and tells someone else that XYZ is happening because "someone" mentioned it and she overheard it. I've seen others just decide in their own mind that X is true and start asking why X is true. Hell, one of my best friends did that over and over. "Yeah, they left because of ABC." "No, they didn't. I know why they left and what was going on." "Oh yeah." Six weeks later, the name would come up and HE'D TELL THE SAME DAMNED FALSE STORY!


For all of the amazing communications things we can do, we suck at it.
 
Why do people start unfounded rumors like this....

Because they like secretly jerking off over everyone talking about it. It's not much different than the kid in the school that pulls the fire alarm and runs away, etc.

Also not saying it is true in this case but I think sometimes the leaking of rumors is intentional.

For example there is an ice cream/junk food bar in Fitchburg called Carol's. Every year someone will start a rumor on faceplant that "Carol's is closing" and every year it ends up being false. I'm beginning to think that someone just does it to be a jerk or its some employee at the restaurant that does it to drum up interest in the establishment.

-Mike
 
For all of the amazing communications things we can do, we suck at it.
back in the day, at management and team building seminars, that was the first lesson, communication. the seminar leader would send everyone from the room except one. they would verbally communicate something, usually a little story read from a workbook, to the first person, bring in the next, and the 2nd person would tell the 3rd and so on. the last person in the chain had to tell everyone the story they were just told. no way, no how did it sound like what the leader told the first person, not even close.
 
I don't mind the deli tickets, beats the hell out of not knowing who's next in a room of 20 buyers. I can't keep track of how many rounds are left in my six-shooter at the range...

I don't go to FS that much anymore but the other thing that system does is tells you how many actual customers are in the store vs the lookie-loo/tire kicker factor. There could be 20 people in the store meat-gazing but only 3 have pulled tickets....

-Mike
 
Because they like secretly jerking off over everyone talking about it. It's not much different than the kid in the school that pulls the fire alarm and runs away, etc.

Also not saying it is true in this case but I think sometimes the leaking of rumors is intentional.

For example there is an ice cream/junk food bar in Fitchburg called Carol's. Every year someone will start a rumor on faceplant that "Carol's is closing" and every year it ends up being false. I'm beginning to think that someone just does it to be a jerk or its some employee at the restaurant that does it to drum up interest in the establishment.

-Mike

Drum up interest in the place your totally on track with that one just look at The Hill Top Steak House in Saugus was there for 50 years the last 7 to 10 years no business last year announce there closing and everyone was going there again they were even stealing the cup menu and anything that had there name with the cactus on it.
 
i don't go near 4s at holiday time when the ticket machine comes out, i show up on weekday mornings when they put the key in the lock, do my business and split as fast as possible. i hate waiting, be it lines, traffic, for friends to show up.
 
There are certain aspects of the gun store business that take just a little too much time for a place like FS. Purchases and transfers aren't so bad in the scheme of things, but the paperwork and phone calls still make a normal retail transaction take longer than anyone would like. That's fine in your average shop, where the customer and employee directly involved in the process can sort of huddle around the counter and get it done while the 2 or 3 other customers/employees in the shop do their thing, but at FS that means some dude and his buddy are standing in front of their display cases and taking up 25% of their counter space for a purchase that might take 5-10 minutes while the other 10-20 customers/employees in the space try to work around them. Fill in the rest of the floor space with stacks of your sale ammo du jour and the shop becomes a claustrophobe's nightmare.
 
While not everyone is a fan of Four Seasons (I am) the amount of business they do is exceptional. Good prices, availability, support, and accessories along with Carl, of course,
has made for a great business model. Perfect? Hardly, but one of my favorite gun stores in Massachusetts...
 
There are certain aspects of the gun store business that take just a little too much time for a place like FS. Purchases and transfers aren't so bad in the scheme of things, but the paperwork and phone calls still make a normal retail transaction take longer than anyone would like.

Lol. You just described the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
before computers...
 
Because it's fun.
Damn right. 30 odd years ago, I was working for a company when it was announced that the company was being sold. Rumors started flying. Just for fun, I asked someone if they had heard anything about them tearing down the building and moving it across the street. It was the most ridiculous thing I could think of. By the end of the day, word was that it had been confirmed by "management". (It wasn't)
 
My favorite part about going to any gun store is the possibility that you might find a hidden gem in their inventory. Something interesting and unusual that would get snatched up in a second out of the NES classifieds, but is just sitting there for sale at a reasonable price because nobody who knows found it yet. I’ve never expected to find one of those at FS.
 
While not everyone is a fan of Four Seasons (I am) the amount of business they do is exceptional. Good prices, availability, support, and accessories along with Carl, of course,
has made for a great business model. Perfect? Hardly, but one of my favorite gun stores in Massachusetts...
his business model is simple, sell hundreds a month cheaply instead of 5 at full retail like everyone else. i will admit carls willingness to solve a customers problem is second to none.
 
I wish he ran a strip joint too...
 
back in the day, at management and team building seminars, that was the first lesson, communication. the seminar leader would send everyone from the room except one. they would verbally communicate something, usually a little story read from a workbook, to the first person, bring in the next, and the 2nd person would tell the 3rd and so on. the last person in the chain had to tell everyone the story they were just told. no way, no how did it sound like what the leader told the first person, not even close.

Chinese whispers - Wikipedia

Or “telephone game” in US usage.
 
My last purchase was at FS. He was the only local shop that had it in stock. The price was at least $50 less than I had seen anywhere else. I spent a little time talking with Carl and he could not have been more pleasant. I took an early lunch mid week and the shop was not all that crowded. We're lucky to have several decent gun shops on the North Shore, each with its own character.
 
Drum up interest in the place your totally on track with that one just look at The Hill Top Steak House in Saugus was there for 50 years the last 7 to 10 years no business last year announce there closing and everyone was going there again they were even stealing the cup menu and anything that had there name with the cactus on it.

Are you spreading rumors? The Hill Top shut down about 6 years ago, not last year. [laugh]
 
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