Japanese Militaria at Castle-Thunder.com

[ronin48]

When living in the Denver area (Lakewood) in the early 70s my older son and I were in Indian Guides, the YMCA equivalent to the Cub Scouts except it was a father-son thing and if the father couldn't attend then another father had to "sponsor' his son. Meetings were at the various members homes. At one meeting there was a gun case in the den and one rifle was a Japanese with a strange wire thing on the front, something I'd never seen (this was pre MRoJ).

Later I called that father, call him Joe, and heard the first, but not the last, "Joe doesn't live here any more." (Keep your zipper closed when not at home.)

In the same time period I stopped at a pawn shop and saw a strange, to me, Arisakas with a short hand guard, fixed sight and wooden butt plate. I had 8-10 Arisakas at the time, but had never encountered a late one. I examined the rifle gave it back to the shop owner, went home, thought about it and went back to buy it. He was closed for lunch so I waited about 25 minutes (at least). When he finally reopened I told him I wanted to buy his rifle, "Oh, I can't sell it to you." "WHY?" "If I did I wouldn't have one to display." (?????????????????) I watched that shop and he was closed within two months.

Jump ahead to 3/19/77, I'd just transferred from the Bureau of Mines Denver office to Atlanta, had ONE WEEK to do it, this was one week before Jimmy Carter's inauguration (maybe they thought he might put bro. Billy in the job?) Any way I had one room in an old hotel converted to "down-and-outers" on the edge of the city so I could walk to work. I wandered up to a gun show in on of the down town Atlanta hotels on Sat. 3/19 and as I walked around one isle I saw three Arisakas with telescopic sights! I didn't know the Japanese had snipers? There was no one at the table so I kept on walking and later, when I made my way back to the table, the owner was there, FRED HONEYCUTT. He'd just published the 1st ed of MroJ, $19.95. Well I wasn't going to pay $20 for a book, but finally broke down and bought one (and I still have it, that's how I know the date.) I went back to my "flop-house" room and read the book from cover to cover, retaining maybe one percent, but knew that were a lot of wonderful "toys" I had to have. That day was one of the turning points of my life.
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Three million People, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us."
The War Inevitable, March 1775, Patrick Henry

[gwsiii]

good times, good friends, good stories! Thanks for posting...
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I didn't pay to much for that old Arisaka, I just bought it a little bit too soon!