I have collected alot of guns over the years. Haven't sold many. There's a very few that I did swap off that I wished I had kept. Factory repros are a dime a dozen (well not actually) but they aren't all that irreplaceable. For me, it is the originals. The guns that would have been stripped for parts and dispersed to the winds. I hate to see a piece of history junked and salvaged like a 15 yrd old Chevy. Here in my Office, I have a Ball Carbine. Not much better shape than a dug relic. A guy wanted to strip it for the action. I just couldn't see it. I rescued it for %50.00 many many years ago. There is an original long rifle at home. As near as I can tell, never been re-rifled. Sure its rough. What are the chances that I'll ever have another? Something that connects me to my Great Great Great Great Great grandfather Hans Michael Angstadt, patriarch of the Angstadt family of Berks county gunsmiths. I'll never be able to afford an original Angstadt. This old squirrel gun may have been made in Ohio for all I know. I wonder how many boys started shooting with it. Whether they fought later in wars. Whther as old men they taught their grandsons to hunt with it. Did it ever fire in anger, fear or violence? Were Indians the target, or French? Did it save a starving frontier family? What stories could it tell? How did it get that dent in the butt stock?, or that slice on the forarm? That guns set me thinking/day dreaming. Of simpler days, harder days, before the IRS, before Trains, and cell phones. Before common literacy when wise men could nonethe less read what was improtant, the marks left by quarry and foe. Nope that gun isn't going anywhere.