Having to sift through a dead man's gun stuff

[leadman1]

I liked Annette's also. At the time he was a little higher priced that most of the other shops but I liked going in there.
I had to do the same thing when my granddaughters other grandpa passed away from covid. did the same when my mother-in-law passed in Michigan but no guns that time, just everything else.
I found it helped to concentrate on selling the items and try not to think of why I was doing it.
Good luck.

[brandonsmash]

Y'all have reminded me that I really need to catalog my inventory -- not only of my firearms, but also my tools and vehicles. If something were to happen to me my wife would be at a loss for valuation.

[Suck My Glock]

Well,...this sucks donkey dong.

My sister and her friend who I discussed in the opening post;...they took a trip to San Diego this week for some girl time. That meant the house was unoccupied. But of course, only a few people knew she was gone, and probably fewer knew what was in there.

Somebody called in an anonymous tip to the Glendale P.D. that they should check out the house, and they found it burgled. The police called the girls up at their hotel to give them the bad news. They called me to see if I had pictures or other records of the guns from when I inspected them. I did, and I passed them on. In fact, the cops reported finding my hand-written notes on a writing tablet all about the guns, a detailed description and their values, which I had left for her back in March when I did the appraisal. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the serial #s in those notes because that wasn't my focus;...I was just establishing values. But it at least gives the cops SOMETHING to go on, along with the pictures. At the least, it will be helpful in filing an insurance claim. It could be worse. Most people never write their stuff down.

So just in case you see these on the market this week, be cautious.













Unfortunately, because the serial #s were not recorded, it will be difficult to identify any of these out in the wild if you encounter them. But a clue would be if you see several of these together. Although the easiest one to identify is if they try to sell off the primers. They are still price tagged as having come from Annette's Powder Keg, at prices we haven't seen in 30 years. That could truly give away the thieves if they aren't hip to hiding their tracks. Not seen in the photos are 2 thumbhole sporter FALs from C.A.I., a Winchester M1 Garand, a Blue Sky Ordnance M1 Carbine, a Yugo M48 Mauser and the blued 4in. revolver seen next to the Mini-14s is a Ruger Security Six .357mag.

[Lobo2087]

Bad enough to lose someone but then this. Sorry your friends are dealing with this

[Doc]

awe man this sucks!

Were the items still in the safe?!

[knockonit]

unfortunate on theft for sure as for sifting thru the DM items
when you outlive your friends you tend to do this more than intended in life, makes one revisit their own mortality, and their stash, me thinks i'll just leave it for the kids to finger out, as i have no idea nor an inclination to do so on my own crap. She'll sell it for what she wants, and guess what, I won't give a shite, cause you know, no one gets out alive
Rj

[Suck My Glock]

awe man this sucks!

Were the items still in the safe?!

The poor girl, despite being smart enough to be a school administrator, lacks common sense in other areas. In short, no,...the safes were NOT locked. Her father had no problem remembering the combinations, because he had chosen and set them. But even though he wrote them down for her while on his death bed, she was constantly paranoid she would lose the paper they were on and wouldn't remember them, so she just had them closed, but not locked. His house was heavily reinforced, and that was apparently her main anticipated protection.

Regardless,...this took time to pull off. There was much more than just the guns and ammo taken. Someone spent an entire day or two in there. Thus, suspicion (for us anyway) falls upon some neighbors across the street. They were in a position to observe comings and going,...would have been the most likely to have observed such a burglary,...and are considered by others on the block to be the black sheep of that street. Our gal is one of those people who always speaks at full volume (because she's used to speaking to classrooms over the shouts of children), so it's entirely possible she might have said something on the phone or to a more trusted neighbor that our persons of interest might still have heard without actually being there face to face with her. Who knows. She is also active on social media and had talked about her trip and when she would be out of town. So many personal and property security violations on her part. But that's your average American, unfortunately.

Glendale P.D. spent all night there taking prints and tool mark photos and whatever other forensice evidence they could. It seems likely that as much time as they spent in the house, the probability of them leaving clues is high. But processing that takes time and won't be quick.

[Ballistic Therapy]

What shame.
I hope they catch them.
I can't imagine having that many guns and no serial numbers written down ?
Without numbers , how would anyone know if it was one of those or not ?

[Azgunlover69]

Are any of your photos clear enough to zoom in and read any of the serial numbers?

[Suck My Glock]

Are any of your photos clear enough to zoom in and read any of the serial numbers?

That's the first thing I checked. Unfortunately, no. Again, at the time, my focus was just doing an appraisal. If I had any clue she was going to just leave the safes open, not only would I have demanded she not do so, I would have definitely written all the numbers down. I made clear to her at the time that I was happy to be of service with these things in any way necessary, even to include taking stuff to the gun shows to try to turn stuff into cash if that's what she wanted. And she didn't say no. But as I mentioned in the original post, there were some other relatives she wanted to give an opportunity to speak up for an item or two,...so she was not in a hurry to resolve anything just then. I understood and made sure she knew she could call on me in the future. I was just patiently awaiting to hear from her as to what she needed from me next.

[Abbey]

Thieves suck. Your original story inspired me to clean a few queens out of the safe, and now I'm even more motivated. Just make things that much less complicated for my wife when I'm gone.

[thom]

I go to a few gun shows each year and will be looking for Annies Powder Keg Primers. I am not very good at identifying rifles. But I will try to print off the pictures. Good luck.

[BigTub]

I asked my insurance agent and $5k is max for the coverage and they all need documentation and professional evaluation. Where does one go to get that?

[Ckoz59]

The older I get the more I try to thin things out just so I don't have to put my wife in a position to get rid of my "stuff"

[Yellowcarbon]

Keep a log with the info on your guns. I used to say keep a digital copy and email it to yourself, but that can be hacked if you care about that. Lately, I have been buying guns mostly through dealers for convenience, so there is already a digital profile. Old person to person sales can be different.

I keep a log with a description of the gun (including serial number), what you paid for it, and any special features about it (special barrel length, furniture, etc.). I also have a notes section where I included anything interesting or noteworthy. For example, traded item 1 for item 2 plus $200. Or it came with 10 spare magazines and an Aimpoint scope.

But this only matters if the person going through your stuff cares. Again, my Uncle who got me into guns, asked that I take care of his guns when he passes away. He asked that I go through his guns with his wife & sons to tell them what is special and what is just a run of the mill item. He has been collecting since the 1960's and one of his first guns was mail ordered. My mom (his older sister) actually had to sign for it at the post office as they wouldn't let a 15 year old sign for it.

My other uncle is a cop (along with several cousin's), he regularly gave my uncle guns as he didn't want any other than his carry gun (Colt Official Police). He would take them off of people when responding to calls. Back in the day, community police was a real thing. He would respond to calls and made a judgement call to just take away a gun rather than charge someone with a crime. One group from off island (this was Hawaii in the 1970's) was stopped and had a trunk full of guns. There were some robberies of local drug dealers and a gambling house. Since nobody would testify or make a complaint, he took away all the guns and said come get them from police station if they were legit. M1 carbines were cheap and handy. Many people used them for hunting in Hawaii (pigs & goats), so those would come up time to time. I know of at least a half dozen M1 carbines. I really need him to go through his collection next time I'm visiting.