Greg Lampe (1942-2022) and a business partner formed Emtech Emulsion Technologies, Inc. in 1986 in Ohio. Lampe served as the president of the company for many years and grew it into a very successful business. After selling the company to 3M in 2002, he retired to Arizona and was able to dedicate more of his time to studying, pursuing, and collecting the best of the best in antique American firearms, but his collection started decades earlier.

Herb Glass Jr., who had been a friend of Lampe since the late 1970s, referred to Lampe as “a persistent collector” who started off when he was young and had few resources and ultimately built one of the finest collections ever known, covering multiple areas of interest, including some of the absolute finest antique Colts, impressive “as-issued” U.S. martial arms, a stunning full-stock Hawken rifle, outstanding pepperboxes, and much more.

Lampe was a true “student” of antique arms and fully appreciated the finer details of both the guns themselves and their history and clearly spent countless hours researching and studying the wide variety of firearms in his collection. He was a member of the Texas Gun Collectors Association, Ohio Gun Collectors Association, and other collector groups.

He was also a “professor” of these incredible historical artifacts, recording and sharing their stories and significance for future generations. In cataloging his impressive collection, it was impossible for us not to be impressed by the amount of information he compiled on his historic arms. Several of his guns were featured in publications as the textbook examples for other collectors to learn from. Many of his guns are truly the finest extant as you can see within this catalog which is just the first batch from his incredible collection.