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RCATULSA RUGER COLLECTORSDISPLAY SHOW
2008
Narrative by Bill Hamm Photography by Matt Olivier WANENMACHER’S TULSA
ARMS SHOW
November 8-9, 2008This year’s annual fall Ruger Collectors Association’s
Display show was once again held in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at Joe Wanemacher’s
great Tulsa Arms 3,800-plus table show.
The number of the public attending was amazing; you could hardly get
through the aisles! We had nine outstanding displays representing our fine firearms
and memorabilia. The displayers
traveled some long distances from various parts of the country to share their
collections with us and the general public. I
want to give them a great big THANKS for all their hard work and efforts.
It was very evident that a lot of time and hard work was spent getting
these displays ready for the show. All
were of pure quality and several contained very rare and unique guns and items.
There was something of interest for anyone browsing through the Ruger
displays. There were handguns, long
guns, and lots of Ruger knives. These
will be outlined below along with the results of the judging. A lot of good Rugers were for sale on the trade tables.
Several of the collectors found good deals on some fine guns for their
collections. I personally saw a
couple of “D” Bearcats, Flatgates,
several transition .357s, a set of consecutive numbered rare Jerred
Engraved Single-Sixes, three or four 10” .44 and .357
Flattops, a couple of 7-1/2” .44
Flattops, some factory brass frame Super
Blackhawks, a mahogany boxed Long Frame Super, and 6-1/2” Super
Blackhawk. Some fine Number 1s were
found at the show with some other good buys of rare to scarce guns!
I could go on and on, but you get the picture; there were a lot
of fine and rare Rugers at the show. The RCA judging/award classes were expanded beginning in 2008 to
include Old Model Revolvers, New Model Revolvers, Autos, Double Actions, Long
Guns, and Tools/Memorabilia. There
is an Advanced, Intermediate, and Novice level under each class.
A voluntary Masters level has also been added for those who have
previously won 1st place with a display at the Advanced level and
wish to opt out of the judging for that same display again or any display new or
old if they so choose. These
changes were made to attract new and more displayers and level the playing
field. Award Plaques and a one year free membership were given by the
RCA for 1st Place winners in the Advanced, Intermediate, and Novice
Category in each Award Class. Chad
Hiddleson, Red Eagle News Exchange, also gave an Award Plaque and one year
free membership to the RENE for the “Best of the Show”.
The Tulsa Arms show also judges displays and gives cash awards
to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winning displays.
All displayers get a nice plaque for their participation.
Our Ruger displays won 1st and 3rd place in the
Tulsa Show awards and are identified below in the individual display write-ups. A Ruger LCP .380 Caliber pistol was provided by the RCA and a surprise drawing was held among displayers at the Saturday night Awards dinner. Novice and intermediate category displayers got two chances while Advanced and Masters got one chance. Descriptions and pictures of the displays as well as awards are shown below: (Click Pictures for a Larger Version)
“RUGER KNIVES BY CASE CUTLERY”
DISPLAYED BY BOB THOMPSON, NOVICE,
MEMORABILIA CLASSAWARDED 1ST PLACE
NOVICE, MEMORABILIA CLASS
AWARDED 3RD PLACE TULSA
SHOW
WINNER OF THE DRAWING FOR THE LCP .380 PISTOLThis was Bob’s first display and our first displayer in our new Memorabilia class. This display included an example of all of the Ruger knives produced by Case Cutlery with the Ruger logo on them. This included one sold only at the Ruger store, the complete two knife set of Blackhawk 50th Anniversary knives, gift tins and a mint set. Lots of folks stopped by Bob’s display to talk to him and learn about all those great looking knives!! For any of you dragging your feet about displaying, just look at Bob’s Awards…WOW!!
“LIMITED EDITION NO. 1 SINGLE SHOT
RIFLES”
DISPLAYED BY HARRY McDUFFIE, NOVICE,
LONG GUN CLASS
AWARDED 1st PLACE NOVICE, LONG GUN
CLASS
This was Harry’s first display and what an outstanding way to break the ice!! Harry had an array of 18 Limited Edition Ruger No. 1 rifles. Included were an 1-A/Etch-A & 1-A/Etch-B .30-06 rifle, a RCA 10th Anniversary and a NRA 125th Anniversary. We sure congratulate him on 1st Place Novice, Long Gun Class! We are hoping to see more No. 1s next year!
“RUGER SINGLE ACTIONS”
DISPLAYED BY JERRY HERTEL, NOVICE,
OLD MODEL REVOLVERS CLASS
AWARDED 1st PLACE NOVICE, OM
REVOLVER CLASS
AWARDED “BEST OF SHOW” for
“S” MARKED HAWKEYE
Jerry’s display included a wide array of top condition old model single actions. Amazingly, all of these guns were boxed! The display included all four types of the Single-Six “Flatgate”, a rare Nickel plated Super Single-Six, a factory second “S” marked Light Weight, the only known factory second “S” marked Single-Six 5-1/2” with walnuts, a consecutive numbered pair of Lightweight Tri-Colors with one in a Green Wreath box and the other in a Black Wreath box, a “S” marked Lightweight and several round gate guns. He also had one of the out-of-sequence RSS5s, #244194. That was the first one of those that I can recall ever seeing. There were two “D” marked Bearcats and Blackhawk 4-5/8” and 7-1/2” examples in .45/45ACP. There was a .45 4-5/8” brass frame, a .30 Carbine and a .41 Magnum with a Micro rear sight. There were mahogany boxed Standard & Long frame Super Blackhawks, consecutive numbered Jerred Engraved Single-Sixes, and an extremely rare, one of only two known, “S” marked factory second Hawkeye. I am sure that there were a few others that I did not name, but you can see that this was an interesting and fine display of Rugers. We are looking forward to seeing more from Jerry at the Intermediate level next year!!
“STURM RUGER’S SUPER BLACKHAWK,
1959-1973”
DISPLAYED BY ROD KIRIAN, ADVANCED,
OLD MODEL REVOLVER CLASS
AWARDED 1st PLACE ADVANCED, OM
REVOLVER CLASS
To quote Rod, “Nine old Supers that show some of the many different variations that make Ruger collecting both challenging and fun.” Two of his favorites displayed were the “S” marked 80-prefix gun and the ultra rare 10” barrel gun. Mahogany and white box cases for the guns were displayed. A good friend of Rod’s sold him the 10” gun and made a custom mahogany case for it at Rod’s request which was also displayed. Another Rod quote, “Good friends and good guns just seem to go together!” I agree with Rod and I am already looking forward to our get together in Harrisburg!!
“RUGER REVOLVERS OF THE 1950s”
DISPLAYED BY MIKE WOMBLE, INTERMEDIATE,
OLD MODEL REVOLVER CLASS
AWARDED 1st PLACE INTERMEDIATE, OM
REV. CLASS
Mike’s eye catching display included fine 3-digit serial number examples of seven single action revolver models introduced from 1953 – 1959. This included the Single-Six .22 Caliber, Blackhawk .357 Magnum, Blackhawk .44 Magnum, Single-Six Light Weight .22 Caliber, Bearcat .22 Caliber, Single-Six .22 Magnum and the Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum. All seven guns were displayed with original boxes as well as an original full page advertisement when each model was introduced. Two of the guns were adorned with factory stag grips and two with factory ivories.
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