Collections?

An arsenal is a collection of arms stored for use, or the place where they are stored.

A battery is a grouping of artillery which is directed as a unit (as in 20 cannon all given the same firing orders), or the stage of a gun's action where it is ready to fire (or a host of other things mostly centering around hitting).

I've already opined that a collection is a grouping whose organization of items with a value greater than the sum of the values of the items in the collection -- that could be a monetary value or information, desirability, whatever.

An arsenal is a collection of arms stored for use, or the place where they are stored.

A battery is a grouping of artillery which is directed as a unit (as in 20 cannon all given the same firing orders), or the stage of a gun's action where it is ready to fire (or a host of other things mostly centering around hitting).

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Or #4

battery (plural batteries)

1. A device that produces electricity by a chemical reaction between two substances.

2. (law) The crime or tort of intentionally striking another person.

3. A coordinated group of artillery.

4. An array of similar things.
Schoolchildren take a battery of standard tests to measure their progress.

5. A set of small cages where hens are kept for the purpose of farming their eggs.

6. (baseball) The catcher and the pitcher together

7. (chess) Two or more major pieces on the same rank, file, or diagonal

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/battery

Oh, no doubt there are plenty of meanings for both words. Arsenal can also mean an establishment for developing, repairing, testing, and manufacturing weapons.

You could call it a Magazine as well. Magazines are "stores for equipment, provisions, arms, and ammunition" per the dictionary.

It's just that some words have well defined gun (if not small arm) related meanings... if you start saying "I have a Daisy in my battery" or "Crossman in my magazine" it sounds like you are embarrassed by, or don't know, the correct word. Plus battery throws in that whole "hitting things"/"causing harm" connotation. "Arsenal" is not a crime, "Battery" is.

I believe it becomes a collection when you have firearms that do not fill a NEED, but rather a WANT. I have lots of wants for firearms, but very little need.

I am not a devout hunter so anything beyond a single hunting rifle, bird gun, 22 rifle, full size handgun and compact/concealable handgun would constitute a collection. Just so I am not a hypocrite, some type of "repeating" rifle... AR,AK... et cetera.

Of course, I think any collection needs at least one Garand, 1903, AR (M-16 style), AR (M-4 style), one each lever pump single semi 22 lr, one each 9mm glock sig hk, one each 45 glock sig hk colt springfield... you get the point.

Don't we all collect?

I have a minor collection of .25 Cal. pistols that includes four Mauser 1910's and four Colt 1908's.

I have Springfield Armory Garand rifles made in 1940, '41, 42, '43, 44, and 45 that I consider to be another minor collection, but it is included in a collection of U.S. WW2 infantry weapons that also includes a Remington 1903a3 and two Remington 1903a4's, 1911a1's from Colt, Remington Rand, and Ithaca. These no longer include my carbines which I've gradually been selling off but I had one from each of the major contractors. I still have the Inland, the Winchester, and the Postal Machine.

I also have a minor collection of Colt Gold Cups or National Match pistols that include models made in 1962, 1968, 1972, and 1979 along with a Gold Cup Trophy of recent manufacture.

I have three colt Challenger pistols and four S&W K22 revolvers along with both styles of S&W M41. These are of course, all .22 Caliber. Oops, I guess I collect .22's.

Do you begin to see the trend?

I realized the other day that I have five pistols in .380 and five others in 9x18mm Makarov. I had to acknowledge that I'd somehow started a collection of 9mm short weapons or I'd gotten two new collections.. Hmmm. What'll I be forced to think if I count up all of the REAL 9mm guns?

The above is by no means all of the firearms that I own, in fact it's less than a quarter of all of my guns. It's when they begin to form into groupings that they become parts of a collection instead of merely being things that I possess.


OMG! Where do these fit??

Collections?? Naw..........collages!

A collection denotes a direction "I collect M1s, S&Ws, Winchesters, etc". 2 or more can be a collection. I would think most of the people on this forum are "accumulators" not "collectors".

A collection of firearms would be any grouping of guns that an individual or group has amassed, that is not required for any specific purpose. A lot of people would call this accumulating, but I disagree.

Look at Jay Leno. He has amassed or accumulated a large number of vehicles of all types. Steam powered, electric, luxury, motorcycles, exotics, sports cruisers hot rods etc. The only commonality among many of them is that they have a powerplant and wheels and are considered cars. He needs none of them, yet has spent a lot of cash on obtaining, maintaining, storing and restoring them. By any definition, Jay Leno is a car collector and has a collection.

My paltry assemblage of firearms includes some military, hunting, personal defence, LE, plinking, sporting etc. Although they are not rare or priceless, I have sacrificed to purchase them, as has my family. I have invested in a place to store them, I maintain them and I enjoy them. I only "need one or two, the rest I have because I wanted them. They give me pleasure. They are a collection.

Hello I'm Bob. I am a gun addict.

Yes, a "collection of guns" could equate to a "collection of cars" though I tend to think of it as more directed than that.

For example, the history of WW2 is an ongoing interest of mine and has been for many years. To amass artifacts from that period is, I think, a natural outgrowth of the larger interest. I have items that relate to the war which are not firearms also and value them as highly on an item by item basis as I do any particular firearm.

I used to have a much larger collection of war related things but was forced to allow much of it to be sold as part of a divorce settlement in 1986.

My parents, and my wife's parents all experienced that wartime and for all of my life and my wife's as well the effects of it influenced much of what followed in their lives and through them in our lives.

(My father was a marine who was gutted by a mortar round (he thought) on Tarawa in 1942 - one of the first assaults in the pacific campaign, and I would trade some of my Garands for the 1903a3 he carried ashore there -- who am I kidding? I'd trade half of my fortune for that rifle if it were ever found and would that rifle not then be a collection in and of itself?).

So, to me a collection is a reminder or a physical artifact of a time that interests me but that I cannot otherwise experience.

Or a collection is some things that are representative of another interest I have, or have had. I'll be the first to admit that my attention does wander from time to time.

One man's firearm collection is another man's firearm accumulation. This is true, but not enitrely. There has to be some unifying characteristic within a "collection". The fact that they are all firearms does not unify the accumulation into a collection. Maybe that won't be true in 100 years.

A group of First Generation Colt Single actions in 1915 would probably only be an accumulation. But in 2009, they constitute a collection.

At what point a firearm accumulation becomes a collection is debatable. I don't know if it happens at 5 guns or 25 guns or the guns are 50 years old and no longer made, but it happens and there is certainly unifying characteristics.

Example: If you own 100 firearms that are all 22 rimfires, that is an accumulation. But if you have 50 individual Colt firearms within the accumulation that are 22 rimfire, that is a collection. In addition to the unifying characteristics of 22 rimfire and Colt, there is a difficulty factor involved in building the collection.

With time, an accumlation of pre-lock Smith revolvers will likely become a collection. Right now, I'm not so sure the term would apply. But if they were all in 38 caliber or one frame size, then it becomes a collection.

I consider mine firearms to be more of an assortment than a collection.

To me a collection has some theme.

A friend of mine has 100+ Lugers. Thats a collection. He also has an assortment of other firearms.

100+ Lugers

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That's a collection! In 1935, they would likely been considered an assortment of Lugers or an accumulation of German handguns.

Pretty hard to put together a credible Luger collection these days.