I was looking for something else and I found old copies of the newsletters. What was written in them constituted the bible for US collectors a decade ago. I belonged to the "club" from 1998 to 2002 by taking a subscription to what amounted to a quarterly newsletter. The "club" went out of business about 2002. It was a project of Val Forgett III and an offshoot of Navy Arms. Navy Arms used to sell milsurps to the C&R collector besides their long standing BP reproduction sales. They were also big in bastardized milsurps too....Enfield #7 .308 Carbine and the Model 2A #1 MK III Tanker Model. Really actual 2A's made into instant relics that were falsely promoted as collectibles. Maybe they really are collectible now as an example of what an established business can do in search of making a buck. Navy arms, as Gibbs Rifle Company, is still at it with 03 Springfields made into snipers from probably deactivated trainers...or whatever. See AIM for examples.
In any case, forgetting the sins of the parent company, this was the first "real" collector newsletter. And it is still the only one I know of that I'd pay money for if I didn't already have them. Lots of people that actually knew things were recruited to write about the unmodified collectible milsurps that were coming into the country in generous numbers and at low prices. Ian Skennerton, Robert W. Edwards...the expert on Indian Enfields..., Robert Ball, the Mauser master, as well as others like Karl Heinz Wrobel, Val Forgett III, Kevin Carney and some others. They also offered some actual collectible weapons to the C&R members. Sometimes they were real bargains and sometimes nothing special in the face of Century which was the heavy hitter at the time.
Wonder how many collectors new to the game ever knew that Gibbs ever existed?
Remember Gibbs Military Collector's club?
Moderator: Niner