"Guns" October 1959 issue

Gibbs

Gibbs

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I stumbled upon this (entire) searchable issue online.

Even if you don't read the articles, even if you weren't alive at the time of publication, just scan through some of the ad's.

(I searched "Krag" and one of the ads was for 30-40 Krag grade 1 ammo for $4.50 for 100 rounds. Dave Pidgeon just last week let me have some for $28 per box of 20 even though the new boxes were price tagged at $42...[crying] )

You will laugh and you will cry.
 
Loved the Mad Minute article and especially the ads throughout the magazine.

Did you notice this in the 'letters to the editor' section
Guns 1959 said:
I began WrItlllg this letter right after watching Paul Coates' "Confidential File"
program on television. This program presented the "cases" of some people against
guns in the home, in the store or place of business, and for private citizens in general.
The narrator brought up several people as witnesses, including one police officer. These
people, with the exception of the police officer, told of mishaps with firearms. The whole
program was directed as an attack against firearms for private citizens. The policeman's views were that guns had no place in
the home, in the store, and in the hands of any private citizen.

What gets me is that people are killed in horrifying numbers each year by cars, but
no one makes an effort to ban cars! Yet, whenever a person is shot accidently or on
purpose, the papers play it up and, all too often, scream for anti·gun legislation.
America has long stood for "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." How then,
can we allow one of our oldest heritages to be destroyed, as some few would have it?
In my opinion, if programs such as the one I mentioned are allowed to continue without
opposition, the American sportsman may soon find himself fighting a losing battle. If
laws are instituted prohibiting pistols, don't think that it will end there. Next to go
would be the rifles and shotguns. Once a law such as the Sullivan Law is introduced, it is
hard as the devil to get rid of.
Howard Conselyea
Norfolk, Virginia
Click to expand...

The Anti's arguments haven't changed, only the dates...

Guns 1962 said:
RE:Birthplace of the Long Rifle
The Philadelphia Police Department recently appealed to citizens (Philadelphia
Daily News, April 5, 1962) to turn in their guns so that they could be destroyed and
thereby curb crime by eliminating guns. Nothing was said about turning in hammers,
hatchets, ice picks, razor blades, baseball bats, golf clubs, kitchen knives, and
other lethal weapons.
Perhaps the police forget the important role played by guns in protecting lives and
property. A thug will steer clear of an intended victim if he suspects that person is
armed!
J. L. Stearns
Philadelphia, Pa
Click to expand...

Philadelphia would do well to listen to the voice of J.L. Stearns even today !

Guns said:
Call To Arms
Keep up your fight against anti-gun legislation! Let's not let some do-gooder or slick
tongue talking boob take away our right to keep arms. We still have the right to vote for
those who will stand up for our rights. We always look back at what our forefathers
did for us. Now what will we do to keep it? Will those who come after us say that
we lost it for them?
A. Fanuko
Chicago, llI.
Click to expand...
So True ! Thought home town was ironic.
 
Last edited:
Gibbs said:
(I searched "Krag" and one of the ads was for 30-40 Krag grade 1 ammo for $4.50 for 100 rounds. Dave Pidgeon just last week let me have some for $28 per box of 20 even though the new boxes were price tagged at $42...[crying] )
Click to expand...

Holy Crap, I didn't know what that stuff was going for.
A friend called me yesterday to take a look at an 1895 Winchester he inherited from his grandfather.
The caliber marking was ".30 Army", which I researched to discover it's really .30-40 Krag.
I was about to go look for a box so we can test it out, now maybe I'll just tell him the gun is only good as a wallhanger.
 
Heck, I can remember when you could mail order a hand gun from the Sears catalog. Long guns too! Just fill out the order form, include your payment and mail to Sears Catalog Sales.
 
Call me weird but I love old magazines. The ads really provide a kind of insight into the times that you don't get anywhere else.

Interesting non-gun stuff: ad for Eddie Bauer sleeping bags on p.32, and a little blurb under "Shopping" for a Toyota station wagon...in 1959. "Fuel consumption 33mpg", probably twice what anything else sold in the U.S. got back in that day except for the VW Beetle.

Also note the 1911s for sale for $35-$45-ish. Plenty of $cheap$ mil-surp bolt-action rifles--Enfield, Mauser, etc.-- being imported. GCA '68 cut that off IIRC. One place is advertising Martini-Henry rifles of the sort used by the British in the Zulu Wars and the Crimea. You could have a had a museum for a few hundred dollars.

A lot of the gun and equipment manufacturers are, of course, no longer around. In New England, there's "Noble Manufacturing" in Haydenville, MA on page 49. Quick Google search suggests they made inexpensive shotguns from 1953-71, and some of their production was sold as Sears Roebuck's "house brand".
 
On page 12 there is a review of some new fangled rifle.

They call it an AR-15.

I wonder how many youngins read this back in the day dreaming about guns. Where are they now and what adventures and lives have they had since.
 
Nice find. I half expected to see an advertisement for "Mitchell's Mausers" pushing the "last" of the genuine WWII German Mausers in collector grade.

Chris
 

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