Wallhangers

[BlueTrain]

When was the last time you saw the word wallhanger?

My wife and I and some other people went out to a local restaurant last Saturday night. It was a fairly yuppie place with lots of decor and atmosphere, mostly sports stuff. They had racing shells and oars overhead and the room we were in had all sorts of outdoor gear like fishing rods and lures. I wonder where they get all that stuff. After we sat down I noticed there were two long guns hanging on the wall, up high. One was a double-barrel shotgun of some sort (I don't know shotguns), the other a Winchester 94 with a receiver sight, which is unusual in itself. No one but me took any note of the guns as far as I could tell.

This is in Northern Virginia. It is interesting and noteworthy to me that firearms were being displayed in such an innocent and casual manner, especially given the hype usually associated with firearms most everywhere.

The next day we visited an art gallery, the Corcoran, to mainly see an Andy Warhol exhibit. He was the guy who did the Campbell's soup cans and odd things like that. Two of his paintings were of guns that are actually not very common anymore, though the paintings are about 25 years old now. Both were High Standards. One a .22 Sentinel, I think it was called, with a two inch barrel, the other a single action, also a .22 I'm pretty sure of. High Standard made some single actions .22s back when fast draw was popular and if memory serves (sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't), it was actually a double action but styled like a single action. Again, these things were on display with absolutely no purpose other than being there as Andy Warhol art. It was just a little surprising to me.

I am sure most of you all go to museums and galleries quite regularly, just like I do. Twice a year, just like clockwork. If any of you are up this way, go to the NRA museum for a real treat. They are a little shy on the art but the guns make up for it. I especially liked the Ed McGivern revolvers they have but I especially liked the wheellock carbine found inside a wall in Massachusetts. The Smithsonian also has an interesting firearms collection, though not as interesting as the NRA collection.

Just things to do on Sunday after church.

 

[Casp_A]

Yup, they do that sometimes. I live in a former gold mining town in NW Los Angeles County of probably 3000-4000 people. A few blocks from my place is the Town Center consisting of a general store, a bank, a gym, a hair salon, a small Chinese food place, a real estate office, the town post office, a paintball shop (used to be a really good barber shop) and a saloon. The saloon used to be called The 49'er Saloon, and the food was really good back then. It got bought out, now it's called Sutter's Mill, and the food sucks. That's not my point though, my point is that if you walk in there, you'll see two old H&R single shot shotguns and two Winchester 1890 pump guns up on the wall above the fire place in the dining area. Yup, Acton, California. One of California's last bastions of redneck-ism.

 

[chris in va]

Hey, what restaraunt was that? Sounds like an Applebees or something.

 

[BlueTrain]

Applebee's are nice but nothing like this: Clyde's, the one on Columbia Pike. There have a dozen rooms, however, all crammed full of things, and I've only been in two.

On a totally separate thing but I might as well put it here or I'll forget it: Also Sunday, on the way to Shepherdstown after leaving D.C., we went through a little town in Maryland called Boonsboro. We passed a house that had three or four cannon on the front porch. One was a French 25-mm AT gun, the other I think was an Italian 47-mm AT gun, plus a couple of muzzleloaders. I noted the AT guns because Hunter's Haven in Alexandria for many years had a number of these tiny AT guns sitting in their parking lot, plus a very interesting and functional German WWII 75-mm infantry gun (a howitizer, actually) and a few other odds and ends.

I often examined them when I dropped by. I happened to notice that one of the French guns was inscribed in the very flowery script just like that found on some Lebels with the date of manufacture, which in the case of that particular gun was about a month before the German invasion in the spring of 1940. Later I thought it would be neat to have a rubbing of it, so the next time I stopped in I was prepared to do that but, after being there 30 or 40 years, they were all gone. They had been sold! I'm not at all certain that the two I spotted in Boonsboro, MD, right on US 40-Alt, were from that lot or not. The building may have been an American Legion or VFW hall, though it didn't look like it. I had missed my turn-off or I never would have seen them.

At the moment I can't think of any other restaurants where I have seen guns on disiplay, though I recall seeing a Vickers or Maxim machine gun in an insurance salesman's office in Morgantown, West Virginia, around 1970.

I have wanted one of my own ever since.

 

[Smokey Joe]

"Wallhanger"

To answer yr original question, in my neck of the woods, the word means any firearm that either is non-functional (due to age or deterioration or both) or would be dangerous for some reason to shoot, like a gun with 'way excessive headspace or a seriously bulged bbl. Expecially when/if the necessary repair parts are either completely unavailable, or would cost more than the firearm in question is worth.

Were I to hang on the wall a firearm in my saloon, I'd make sure that the firing pin had been removed or some other non-showing but essential part, so that there would be no chance whatever of success for some person making an unauthorized attempt at firing said wallhanger.

I've heard the word used by gun store people as a bargaining chip, when discussing a proposed trade-in. "Well, son, you know it doesn't fire now. With the parts that 'un needs, and the work I'd have to do on it to make it safe to fire, I'd never get my money back out of it if I did buy it from you. You could buy a brand new gun for less than the cost of the repairs, and if it was all repaired, you'd still have a questionable old gun. Take it home; it's just a wallhanger."

A wallhanger may have collector value if it is particularly old/rare/specially engraved or decorated, or connected with some famous person or event. But most, IMX, are just old rusty junk guns.

By comparison, a "shooter" is a gun in perfectly good shape, which might have had collector value, but has been modified by a previous owner. For example, a Win M 94 that has had its bbl length changed, and a new front sight added. Not to mention having signs of considerable use on stock and blueing. "Well, son, that's a nice 94, internally good, but with the wear, and the modifications, you might as well just go hunt deer with it. It's just a shooter."

 

[jefnvk]

They are as common as mounted deer heads around here.

 

[blackmind]

now it's called Sutter's Mill, and the food sucks

In Albany, New York, right across Western Ave. from the uptown S.U.N.Y. campus, is a bar-type restaurant called Sutter's Mill and Mining Company. I remember it from when my brother attended there from 1980-84, and then when I attended there from 1989-93.

All I remember is shoestring fries with cheddar sauce on 'em, and really tasty oval-shaped burgers on great kaiser rolls, with sliced sauteed mushrooms and that same cheddar sauce. Pinball machines and "BattleZone"... Good times, full belly.

Anyone here know that place?


-blackmind