Hello from Chilly MN USA

Hello there!

I am new here as a member but have been reading posts for the last two months! What valuable information is on this site! A dear friend of mine lost his father last year and for helping with things he gave me his father’s complete collection of model guns as he has no interest in them himself. This collection includes about 55 MGC models from Colt SA’s – 13 of them, 10 or so Lugers with one drum mag and stock, 5 1911’s, 3 Browning 9mm, Colt navy’s and army’s, 4-5 p-38’s, 4 Berretta 1934’s, 2 S&W 44 autos, 8 Mauser M-96’s with one stock, a Thompson with vertical foregrip and a drum mag, one MP40 MGC “68”, and two Winchester rifles among other things. Most have S/N’s below 1500.

There are also numerous black powder pistols and later plastic cap revolvers of which I have not yet identified the manufacturing companies.

I have been carefully disassembling each one and cleaning them. I am currently working on a short barrel MGC Luger s/n 00263. Some of them are in poor condition and seem to have been used heavily as evidenced by worn bolts, hammers, triggers, and finishes. I have gained so much information from here I cannot begin to say thanks to all the members!

I have a long road a head of me to get each one back in perfect condition. I have been restoring fire arms for 35 years but these things are so much fun and have got me learning about and handling arms I never thought I would see let alone have.

I have no intentions of ever actually firing them (most are cap firing and some are PFC firing) after I finish each one, because I am afraid of causing more wear and damage to them.

I will be needing parts for many so I will be asking for some help as I progress.

Once again, thanks so much and thanks Cerwyn for the welcome email with parts info!

Take care and be safe!

Welcome to you!! From France!

I'm a new too and you will see, everybody is kind here and ready to help.

Maybe you could take photos of the model gun collection and show us.

See you soon

Welcome & Greetings from New Zealand.

This IS an tremendous site with extremely helpful & knowledgeable people - and like you I viewed the posts for a while before joining!
You'll see from my posts I've developed my collection by making a few repairs and modifications. If there's any suggestions or help that you think I might give, please post on the forum or PM me.
You have your work "cut out" for you for sure, but WOW! what an awesome collection you have been given to "play" with.
And I endorse your thinking about what you might or might not fire caps in!

And as Momocampo says - please post some photos when you have the time!
Look forward to your posts Fearless!

And "a bientot" Momocampo!

Kiwigunner

Hello Fearless, welcome indeed to our forum

I'm delighted to read that you've found this site informative and helpful. there are a great deal of very knowledgable and enthusiastic members here, all of whom will make you feel very welcome as you've started to see already
We'll all try to make sure you get as much help as you need to get the most out of your fine collection.
It does indeed sound like a most impressive collection, you've been very fortunate to receive such a fine assortment.

Welcome again, I'll look forwards with interest to hearing from you and seeing some photos of your models.

Thank you all for the supportive words! Yes, I will try to learn how to upload photos tonight. I also am going to cataglog each one.

As for tips, after losing several springs/balls from several during disassembly, I now place the gun in a clear zip lock bag, reach in and remove the part thereby catching anything that has been longing for escape. I will have a treasure hunt this weekend to find all those that fled the scene.

Welcome to the forum :-)
It is a nice collection indeed, though be prepared to spend time and money on making it even larger once you get more involved

Very valid observation here, speaking for myself. Tiny-object-chasing, as well as trajectory-estimation, light-shining-along-the-floor, rolling-a-magnet-around, peering-under-varius-furniture are just some of the skills learned during the process ;-)

It's amazing what other things you find when looking for those escaped parts!

Fearless wrote:

It's amazing what other things you find when looking for those escaped parts!

With me its usually the part I lost "last time" that I thought was gone forever, and had to buy a replacement !!
Still it's one way of building up spares [