Gun collectors set for weekend show at Raven Hall

October 21, 2005

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

PALMER - Looking for more bang for their bucks, the Alaska Gun Collectors Association left the spendy Sullivan Arena and took its show up the road to Raven Hall at the Palmer Fairgrounds. The organization will hold its fall gun show Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

&#8220We don't like competing with the guys in Palmer,” said Wayne Anthony Ross, president of AGCA. &#8220They started their shows in the 1960s and we don't like to steal their thunder.”

Ross and his son, Greg, will be at Raven Hall this weekend. They collect Colt and Smith & Wesson Model .45 pistols together, but that display won't be at the Palmer show. Instead, they will be showing their collection called South of the Border, said Greg Ross. The collection consists of various firearms manufactured in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, he said, with the earliest models made about 1910 on up.

Greg Ross also collects miniature cannons with his own son - some of them are replicas and some are usable black-powder cannons. They range in size from 3-14 inches long, but the black-powder mini-cannons won't be at the Palmer show.

&#8220I haven't put them on display yet,” he said. &#8220I just got six more from Missouri and I need to organize them.”

The three generations of firearms collectors in the Ross family are getting to be more of a rarity than the norm.

&#8220The Gun Collectors use the money for charities and education,” said Wayne Anthony Ross.

&#8220We need to get young people involved in collecting. There aren't so many of them anymore.”

Gun collectors are not the same as gun accumulators, according to Norm Grant, president of the Territorial Cavalry (Motorized).

&#8220A gun accumulator buys every damn gun he can get,” Grant said. &#8220Then he wants to trade up. A gun collector wants a firearm that is as close to perfect as possible.”

Alaska can be a tough place for gun collectors, according to Wayne Anthony Ross.

&#8220I go to gun shows all over the country and you find firearms from the 1700s and 1800s ,” Ross said. &#8220But people started to settle Alaska later, and most guns here are users.”

Defining a &#8220user,” Ross said guns brought to Alaska for the most part were used hard, as tools.

&#8220Prices are generally lower here, though,” he said. &#8220I've told people Outside they could probably pay for their ticket to Alaska by coming up and buying.”

Greg Ross agrees that in Alaska most people don't usually have the opportunity to get their hands on collectable firearms.

&#8220In the states you have a better opportunity,” he said, &#8220and the prices are comparable.”

When Grant heard that take on gun collecting in Alaska, he offered a different opinion.

&#8220You're crazy,” Grant said. &#8220I sold 70 firearms two weeks ago to a national gun buyer and he said they were the best he'd ever seen. I have about 80 Model 24 Savages, quality over-and-under shotguns, and the biggest number of them I got here in Alaska.

&#8220I have 170 .25-caliber pistols, vest-pocket style, and 50 percent of them I got up here. Certain guns, like the Remington Model 870 shotgun, were all used hard. But I know a collector who has about 30.”

The Territorial Cavalry holds its own gun show every July to raise money to buy and restore old military vehicles. It will have a Dallas Arms display at this weekend's show.

&#8220The Valley is the best place you can find to have a show,” Grant said.

Wayne Anthony Ross remembers when the Valley wasn't so populated.

&#8220We used to hunt all the way through Wasilla,” Ross said. &#8220Now it's a growing area with a lot of people close by. Going to a gun show there is a nice ride from Anchorage and from surrounding areas like Glennallen. Palmer has a good facility a heck of a lot cheaper than the Sullivan.”

Grant said he has missed only one gun show that he knew about in Alaska in the past 20 years.

&#8220What else are you going to do?” he said. &#8220Load up the wife and go to a gun show.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.