Hmmm...
No real category for me to pick in that poll.
I guess it's a combination of the first and second options. There's been a few purchases when she did know about them. Two guns were birthday presents from her, knowingly paid out of our funds. A Kel-Tec SUB-9 about five years ago. And a Remington 870 two years ago, so I could participate in our company's informal trap leauge without having to rent. Others have been with money when I sold a gun to buy another, and that's "off the books", and only fair.
About a third of my collection was purchased before we were married. In dollars, that third is about half the value of my collection.
The rest is on the "don't ask don't tell basis". I'm sort of stuck in that category as I've no real leverage over her as she has no major collections or hobbies that compare, at least financially to my gun collection. We haven't got the money for his-n-her checking accounts. Her hobby is community theater, and the only major expense there is her time. But since she's gone to the theater for rehearsals so much, I wind up doing the lion's share of the housework, plus remodeling I've been doing for the past few years. So I "pay" myself with a constant slow skim of our pocket money into the "gun envelope", and I've magnanimously produced that stash, setting myself back to zero, on occasion when there's been emergencies we weren't planning on.
So I feel pretty justified in what I do buy. She'd be miffed about the "don't ask don't tell" firearms, if she knew how much, or when they were bought, but I've earned them.