Milsurp After Hours

My Curio & Relic license will come due for renewal in a couple of months. Just looked at the book and I haven't bought one single firearm with it since I last renewed it nearly three years ago. I'm thinking about just saving the $30 this year as my curio and relic curiosity has been satiated. And God knows the great influx of cheap and exotic firearms has ended. No more $50 Mausers and Nagants. However, having a license may also be a form of insurance in a way, and I'm thinking of keeping it. Suppose somebody is called to my house for some repair like the A/C repair man, plumber, electrician, termite inspector, etc., and he noticed evidence of my collection and called up the Office of Homeland Security, or one of those sorts of agency's, and reported his suspicion of me hording firearms for unknown reasons? I think that maybe having a license to collect the kinds of guns I have would somehow mitigate any wrong conclusions by well meaning, but ignorant, authorities. The Feds know I collect guns and the local police do too. Any government agency of the spooky kind could find that information out pretty quick without even having to knock on my door and invade my home. And...importantly... they would find out I have a license to collect.

We've all seen...and some believe.. that it's some kind of smart thing to cover any kind of paper trail between a gun purchase and ones self. Individual purchasing from individual and Gun show purchases from "private collections",being a couple of the ways to hide. But how does one know the guns are legitimately come by? You could be purchasing a stolen weapon and maybe could become a suspect involved in the theft. Not that a C&R holder couldn't be a crook, or aid and abet a crook in some unsuspecting way......but C&R holders have to keep records of who they buy and sell from along with some proof of who they deal with in either case.

I'd imagine few people who see this site have a C&R now days. Certainly our European members don't......they never could have anything like it in their countries. Some American members may have had one but let it drop after the curio fever went down and the cheap imports went away.

In any case...just for the heck of it... I thought I'd offer this poll.

For $30 I would renew it ( $10 a year). It's a small price to pay for an official justification for your collection.

I would be inclined to keep it.

Joe

I tried to do some online research to find out how many C&R holders there are. I could find a site run by the government that lists the commercial license holders by name. But... I haven't found any information on how many C&R holders there are. Maybe there is some information ...but I haven't been able to find it.

Back when I was buying pretty regular...and I was still working and not retired.. I used to have the nobody home to sign problem too. My wife worked too and nobody was home during the day most days. I'd just notify UPS usually, and sometimes FedEx, that I'd just come and pick it up. FedEx was about two miles from where I worked and no problem but the UPS is was about thirty minutes through traffic away. And at UPS there was usually a line of people sending and picking up and always just one clerk to handle the customer needs. But...now that being home for a delivery isn't much of a problem....my collection is built.

I haven't ordered from an online site in years where the C&R was used. Entries in my C&R book are usually local purchases from flea markets, or friends. A few sales are usually to friends. Does not make a whole lot of sense to keep it, but renewal is easy. It does give me less grief when shipping since UPS seems sayisfied with a license.

The renewal notice came a few days ago. It doesn't actually need replacing until May. But.... I filled out the paper and wrote the check and put it in the mailbox at the Post Office. Wasn't sure I had enough postage on the multiple copies to the CLEO. But it's Presidents Day. Nobody working at the Post Office. I took a chance one stamp would do.

Got the new license today. It looks a little different. The wording is a little different to emphasize it isn't a license to do business. Where the old license just had a line to sign your name, the new one has a sign line and and print your name line, and a date line and a title line. I'll attach a jpg with the new one laying over the old one to show what I mean.