The Past That Drives Us

Larry was an avid gun collector and has amassed an amazing collection of Winchesters, Merwin & Hulbert Pistols, and more. Larry attended his first gun show in 1966 and pursued "chasing high quality guns ever since". He was very active in various gun collecting groups and held board positions in the Colorado Gun Collectors Association, Winchester Club of America, and American Society of Arms Collectors.

Lee was a conservationist long before it became fashionable. While living in Angola in the early 1960s, he was instrumental in obtaining government protection for lion, cheetah, black rhino and their habitats. He then designed the first ecologically sound wildlife management program in Africa with the Portuguese Provincial government (Angola), to counteract the decimation of the big game population by poachers.

Perhaps most well-known for being elected the 63rd president of the National Rifle Association, but by any standard, Cors lifelong involvement in firearms has been extraordinary. His origins in collecting begin much like anyone's - with a Daisy Red Ryder BB Gun that he still owns to this day. In grade school, he would bring his Winchester Model 75, ammo, books, and sack lunch to school and when finished he would head down the street to a church with a 10-point rifle range in its basement.

70 years ago a young man, fresh out of the army air corps and laid off from his publicist job, started a publication with $400 borrowed dollars, a love of exciting cars, and a lot of hard work. The name? Hot Rod Magazine. The 21-year old who started it was not other than Robert Einar Petersen, a burgeoning media magnate whos empire at Petersen Publishing produced such magazines as Motor Trend, Car Craft, Petersen's Hunting and lets not forget Guns and Ammo.

Born in 1925, Robert "the Bear" Bretherton had an unquenchable thirst for fine arms acquiring his first gun by his sixth birthday. Over the next 80 years, Mr. Bretherton hunted and pursued fine and historic arms with unmatched passion, intelligence, and vision from every corner of the world. There is no question that above all else Mr. Bretherton was a true collector born in the hunt, the study, the pride of possession and endless desire to find and own the unrivaled, the unsurpassed...the very best. To call the collection a life time achievement would be a drastic understatement. This all becomes quickly apparent when viewing the collection in its entirety or within any of the dozen sub-collections, for each is world class in its own right.

Ralph Shattuck was born in Cleveland, Ohio mere months before the Great Depression, but would go on to become one of the pioneers and giants of the Luger collecting community. Even as a child Shattuck would ride around on his bicycle and purchase whatever pistols he could with the intention of selling them. His home was open to many collectors throughout the years and was nearly considered a pilgrimage site for Luger enthusiasts - containing hundreds of Lugers in his personal collection and even more in "the inventory".