Pete called last night and asked me to post a show update on last weekend’s Franklin Show. I have been traveling and not able to post much of late, but I am home for the holidays now. Yay!
The Franklin Show was good as usual, maybe better than what has become “the new normal” since it moved to smaller, albeit still spacious, quarters in Franklin. As with the last couple shows since August, I was in an unusual circumstance for me with my primary objective being to sell vs. buy. It is impossible to do both well, but I did manage to stumble across more than the usual amount of acquisitions which was nice.
Sales were excellent, but that is probably largely a function of us having quite a bit of nice, well priced material right now. The for sale items from the four collections we have purchased are finally rolling out the finished goods end of Jim and Carl’s most excellent inerting and electrolysis factory, but there is plenty more quality stuff to come for Charleston, Dalton, hopefully Baltimore, Wheaton and Mansfield over the next 6 months.
I actually bought quite a lot at Franklin from a nice group of 22 Dimick bullets to 11 artillery projectiles and a few other things like a Mac Mason item for a Mac Mason display I am building (after seeing Dave Slemmer’s and one other) and some artillery tools that walked in right before I left. For projectiles I am keeping in my collection vs. flipping, it was a Hotchkiss kind of show.
- Non dug 20pdr Hotchkiss. This is the exact shell shown in D&G on page 176. I added the fuse when I got home – it screwed in easily to this rarity 10 dropped shell.
2 nice, larger caliber Hotchkiss shells from Vicksburg. Super condition as one expects from there.
Canister D rebuilt a 3” Hotchkiss canister for me and delivered it along with some rounds for others. This one has an original top plate, but some of his reconstructed canister have very nice reproduction tops. Right before I left I saw a 6pdr he had rebuilt one guy was reselling as all original despite Canister D having told him very clearly that he had made the top plate from some rusting farm equipment. Going forward Canister D is going to mark his repros as a result.
The prices in the Western theatre are way better than they are out East. I don’t know how the folks out East sell many relics, but they do seem to like to make the trek to Tennessee to buy them.
Of course, the camaraderie is always the highlight of these shows. It was great to spend time with Jack Bell, Dan K., Brant Arnold, Jack Melton, TraderSean, the inspirational TraderEd, Carl, Harvey Warrner, Howard Aligood, Jerry Foster, Nick Periut, Jon P., Steve Sylvia, Rafael, Ran H. (thanks for hauling my stuff back to Richmond), John Walsh, Steve Phillips and others too numerous to name.