How many engraved and adorned ‘special edition’ collector guns have you seen advertised in gun buff books? Like persistent plantar warts, they seem to pop back up every few months. I think I lost count about twenty years ago, and that was well before the flood of so-called ‘collectible’ rifles marketed around the centennial of the Winchester model 1894. Or the current wave of 1911s unleashed by JMB’s b-b-b-birthday (I would like you to shoot). I suspect that America’s gun safes are quietly awash with mass-produced ‘commemorative’ firearms, tarted-up with chintzy gold electroplating and the occasional brass medallion inset into the stock. Mindful of this glut of non-collectible ‘collector’ guns, let’s take a look at some other special-edition guns we won’t see on the end jackets of buff books . . .

“The Breakfast Club” Commemorative Flare Gun

According to the backstory, Brian’s flare gun almost burned down Shermer High School. For a gross violation of state, local and school firearms policies, for wielding a weapon of mass destruction, The Powers That Be sent Brian to . . . detention. (Today, he’d be lucky to survive the resulting SWAT team tactical assault.) If Brian hadn’t taken Crazy Arthur Brown’s advice to heart, Brian wouldn’t have met Bender, Allison, Andrew or Claire. And the teen-angstiest teen movie in history would never have been made.

If a single marine flare can do that for alienated teenagers, think what it can do for your children! Order yours now at our low introductory price of $425.00 and we’ll deliver it in a custom fireproof ‘high school locker’ shipping case, straight to your door.  No FFL required; hazmat shipping fees apply.

Dick Cheney Commemorative 28-gauge Double-Barrel Shotgun

Inside baseball fact: rival gunmakers engaged in a bidding war for the rights to market a faithful replica of the dove gun with which American Vice President Dick Cheney peppered attorney Harry Whittington. Taurus almost made it with their “Raging Veep” modified Judge Carbine, but failed at the final furlong (something about “Dick’s friends at the ATF”).

On this, the tenth anniversary of that infamous event, we’re proud to announce that Perazzi themselves stepped into the breach (so to speak), offering the same 28-gauge MX28 shotgun used by the man who would be king. President. Whatever. It’s their standard model, engraved with Shakespeare’s immortal words from Henry The Sixth, Part 2 Act 4, scene 2: “First thing we do let’s kill all the lawyers.”

Also sold by gunsamerica.com (of course), the Italian firearms manufacturer has fitted this piece of repro-history with proprietary ultra-full chokes, since standard choke designs proved incapable of replicating extremely tight patterns (as produced accidentally on attorney Harry Whittington’s head and chest) at the Vice President’s claimed shooting distance of 30 yards.

Available by special order only, at a suggested price of $18,900, Includes a lifetime membership to the Richard Cheney Vice-Presidential Library And Shooting Range.

Saddam Hussein 10th Anniversary Mannlicher-Schoenauer Carbine

Saddam Hussein may have been tried, sentenced and decapitated by hanging, but you can still bust a cap with this special commemorative rifle bearing his name. As we near the tenth anniversary of his expulsion from power, you too can own the iconic Mannlicher-Shoenauer carbine that Saddam Hussein fired one-handed in public celebrations across Iraq. You know, before . . .

Both Ernest Hemingway and Saddam used this, “the world’s finest rifle” in their ongoing attempts to prove they were not gay. When Steyr stopped producing Mannlicher-Shoenauer in 1972, the carbine cost $340. Adjusting for inflation and historical value, this German-built commemorative carbine costs just $5,850. It includes one 20-round box of rare 6.5x54mm blank cartridges with low recoil and no down-range hazards.

The first twenty-five purchasers of the Saddam Hussein Carbine are also eligible to buy a custom semi-automatic replica of his Glock 18c machine pistol. Seized by Delta Force operators when they captured the hated dictator, this pistol was presented to George W. Bush as a personal trophy. “Bush 43” will display the original in his Presidential Library. Where will you put yours?

 

 

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19 COMMENTS

  3. Unfortunately, the phony ‘Iraqi Gold-Plated AKs’ already exist. They’re often Romanian WASR-10s, imported by Century and crudely anodized by unscrupulous sellers. They don’t show up at better gun stores.

  4. Seized by Delta Force operators when they captured the hated dictator, this pistol was presented to George W. Bush as a personal trophy.

    I just looked this up. It appears that they illegally imported and possessed a post-86 machinegun. Am I wrong, or shouldn’t the people including Bush involved be going to prison?

    • Maybe it was classified as a dealer sample for LEOs? I would dearly love to see a pol get crucified by a local prosecutor when some donor gifts them a gun for a photo op (cough, Kerry hunting trip, cough).

  6. I seem to recall the gun blogosphere not really having too many negative things to say about Dick Cheney after his grotesque violations of the Four Rules.

    As for the collectibles market, someone rather pithily suggested to me that already collectible 1911 pistols should see a rise in value, not the “commemorative” stuff everyone’s cranking out.

  10. I always thought that Springfield Armory, or American Historical Foundation, should have brought out a Kent State Commemorative M1 Garand…

    • I went to school at Kent and saw the site along with the one bullet hole through the steel plate sculpture; it’s chilling.

      Funny thing: around 2002 the Kent State Police were going to buy used M-16s from the Ohio National Guard and have them modify the guns to semi-auto only. The thinking was to prevent terrorist attacks and other mass shootings. The student council balked about military weapons being carried on campus in light of the events of May 4, 1970. So the police acquiesced and purchased brand-new AR-15s… the student council was happy because they hadn’t heard of those before. Only they spent about 4 times as much money for the new guns. I think they were Bushmasters.

  11. Where are the Mythbusters when you need them? Others have tried to reproduce Whittington’s wound pattern at 30 yards using a 28-ga, and discovered it was impossible. Either Cheney was *much* closer to Whittington than he claims he was, or he was secretly hunting doves with a 10-gauge goose gun. Either way, I guess we don’t know Dick.

  12. Should have a commemorative Zumbo, “Terrorist Rifle” just to remember the good times.

  13. The Mannlicher-Schönauer is actually an Austrian rifle, not a German. During WWII, when Austria was a part of Germany, it was produced with the sign “Made in Germany”, but there exist only a few of them.

    The bolt-action-rifle of Saddam on this photo is not a Schönauer! It’s a Mauser-system, just compare a magazine-plate of a Schönauer-system and a Mauser-system.

    Low recoil with a 160grs-bullet out of a barrell with a length of 45 centimetres?
    I think you don’t know anything of this rifle.

    Greetings from Austria.

    • I bought a Winchester 94 Utah Centennial 30.30 for $1800.00. I had it for 7 months and sold it for $2300.00. I would buy what you call no-collectables all day long.

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