Time for a Rehash, past time

Yes, I am still alive.

Sorry I have been dark for so long, 

the fact that I lost "best airsoft blog" to some Hipster with a shaved rat masquerading 

as a dog put me in to a blue funk .

I drowned my sorrows in many a bottle of  Jim Beam premium bourbon, spent many hours walking the streets, chanting and slapping my head with a book of "The 10 Commandments of Aisoft by SCARR"  

(really, I have just been busy at work)

So, I am back and the 1st thing I am going to do is rehash something I wrote a few years ago.

I have seen this coming up again more and more on the various airsoft and RS forums I inhabit.

I think it's time to say it again

From March 25th 2010

   

Security for airsoft and other things in life

We all can't have a super hero hanging around the house, so we need to watch out for ourselves.

I have been perusing the internet the past few days, reading lots of forums for real steel guns and have noticed some things I wanted to talk about.

It seems like we all (airsoft and RS) love to show off our collections online.

Over the last couple days I have viewed some incredible collections of Firearms, High end collectible knives and airsoft guns. They are all on open forums, hooked to a screen name.

That screen name nine times out of ten has a profile connected to it with the hometown of the poster.

Sometimes even the persons real name is also available.

Now lets say you post up a collection of Vrosapale pistols, you are very proud that you have scoured the world to find all models of this unique piece.

A few weeks later you post that you are on your way to the Vrosapale collectors convention half way across the county and you will be off the forums for 5 days. You revel in your Twitter updates about you most recent find at the show, or what a jerk that last guy you dealt with was.

What have you just done?

Have you just told someone that you have valuable items and you will be gone from .to.?

What do you think?

I know you have a gun safe, but don't you think in two days time someone can't get into it, most of the time using tools from your own shop?

What about the other things showing in the pictures, computer systems, flat screens and all the cool movie collectibles in your "man room"?

Do you think bad people don't read Glocktalk, AR15.com or ASR?

I bring this up because years (way too many) ago I was doing the gun show circuit in FL, 51 weekends a year, driving from one end of the state to another, setting up on on Fri, break down and home Sun night.

We had a time when a small group would come to the show on Sunday, tag a dealer that had a nice display and then wait around till close down and loadout and follow him home. Sometimes they hit as soon as the dealer got home or to his shop, sometimes waiting till the next day if it was a collector who worked during the week.

One dealer got killed and a few got hurt and they didn't stop until they screwed up and  got caught.

Now it's 2012, we have Google maps, Google name search, find anyone for 8 dollars and tons of other neat ways to locate an address.
 (and since I wrote this the 1st time, wonderful Google and IPhone apps that can tell everyone exactly where you are , right to the minute.)

Am I too paranoid? (can you be today?)

I learned to keep every thing collectible or rare at an off-site storage location. That and insurance keeps it away from myself and loved ones

.

It does suck that we can no longer have the "Trophy" rooms of yesteryear.

(even if you never have posted a picture, how about the bug guy, meter reader, the guy who trims your trees.

Do you think they might have looked in the window and passed on how cool your cave was?)

From AOL article, 

 Some insurance companies are catching on. Legal & General Insurance in New England says Facebook and Twitter users could be hit with higher homeowner's insurance premiums. Why? All that blabbing about activities away from home means they face a higher risk of burglary.

The company thinks burglars are actually "shopping" for victims on social media sites, looking not only for an indication you're not at home, but also photos of your home and valuables. That cute picture of your son hugging the dog? A burglar is looking in the background, eyeing your big-screen TV and new stereo system.

And it's not just adults. Teenagers are even more likely to post personal information, so Legal & General has warned that parents who aren't even online themselves could face higher homeowner's insurance premiums if their children are online.

So, a month after I post, others catch on, welcome to the party, Pal

Even though I have a overlapping video system with my next door neighbors, a alarm system, Two big dogs and a neighbor on one side who's a Reserve police officer and has a home office where he works that overlooks my house and on the other side is a just retired Navy DEVGRP 20 year man who has nothing better to do than sit on his back porch and shoot guns most of the day (and night, for the past damn week!) I still want to keep the good stuff locked up.

I hate that when I want to review a gun or get ready to go to a gun match or a airsoft game that I have to lay in another 40 mins to go by and pick up what I need, but I would hate to have a shootout at my house or even worse  to come home and find what I had worked 40 years for ransacked and off at some pawn shop.

My stuff is pretty safe and yes, I have gone overboard but it gives me piece of mind that I have done all I can, if I get hit now, that's what insurance is for.

Just some random thoughts that came into my head and I wanted to share them, and because I am old and it's my Blog, I did, Nah nah neey po po

I am losing it

Please share your thoughts on this in the comments.

See you tomorrow

Till then, Check 6

The Rest of the story, 1987 Airsoft / Paintball catalog pages

1987, It Was a Very Good Year,

The 1st Lethal Weapon movie made it's premiere, as did the Untouchables.

REM, Wang Chung, and George Michael were on the radio.

In Crestview, FL, paintballs and airsoft BB's filled the air.

Because so many people contacted me about my post on the early days of airsoft and almost all of them mentioned that they started with paintball, I thought I would post the rest of the catalog here.

Click on the page to enlarge. ( that what she said, huh, huh)

 Do you remember your 1st paintgun?

Mine was a Nelson and I was the 1st person to get a pump handle for it in Orlando, bought it mail order from an ad in a newsletter, I think it was called "front line", the 1st newsletter for paintball, it was a 4 sheet foldup if I remember correctly.

 I think we were the first to offer Constant air systems,

not the 1st to make them, just to offer them retail.

 Our Custom shop did a lot of work, I think we were a month backloged at some points.

 

Hope you enjoyed this trip down,
"Was I ever that fu&#ing young" lane.

I hope to have some reviews of some of the airsoft guns from that era soon, as my digging around in the archives of the airsoft bunker in Skull Island has unearthed some "still in the box"  and some well worn classics I forgot were buried there.

I always look forward to your comments and thoughts.

The history of airsoft and paintball in the US is not very well documented,

Because most of us that started this were so incredibly awesome and cool,

it seems we have tended to burn out fast, like the shooting stars we were.

We need to archive this info before the 80"s flashbacks take what is left of our brains and the zombies come and eat the rest.

If you want to see the rest of the catalog, here it is
http://noairsoftforoldmen.blogspot.com/2011/04/1987-airsoft-catalog-real-blast-from.html

Till Tomorrow,

Stay Thirsty my Friends.

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1987 Airsoft Catalog, real blast from the past

As most of you know, 

I have been involved in this Airsoft thing for a while.

I just took the time to scan in the catalog I produced in 1987.

When I say I produced, I mean I wrote the copy, did the layup and layout, everything but the pictures.

My ugly mug is even a model in most of the pictures.

Command Post was the 1st airsoft/Paintball catalog in the United States.

This catalog I have scanned was our third, 1987/88

I had no background in copy-writing or printing.

I managed to muddle though it though and I think we shipped out over 20,000 copies.

Laurence Lee Littlefield started the company in 1985,

I came on in late 86, left in 88 and I think it lasted till about 1990.

I worked with some great people there, met a lot of great customers in my travels to shill for the company and have some fond and not so fond memories of trying to convince people that we were not selling real guns!

In 1987 at one point you could turn over any of the "Mens adventure" magazines in a newstand 

(these were stores that sold just newspapers and magazines in the old days)

and my smirking mug would be on a full back-page ad trying to sell our ill fated paintball helmet.

I am posting this up because there is a huge dearth of airsoft history on the net,

and not for any ego boosting self promotion

( well, maybe a little, I am proud I was involved with it)

I have dropped out most of the paintball and other stuff, we sold Keith Idema Combat Systems vests and holsters ( look up Keith on Goggle, ya, it's the same guy), Al Mar knives, Cold steel knives and lots of other stuff.

If anyone wants to see the full paintball stuff, let me know, I am just putting a sampling here.

Well, I think that was enough ado, so with out any further, here you go,

Click on the images to make them larger so you can read all the wonderful verbiage and hyperbole I came up with to describe each gun. The more I look at it now the more I cringe,
seems like ever other gun was the "best"

 Yes, that is me on the left, and that is the gun I used to travel with to paintball fields around the US,

most people would just run away from it.

The Tippman SMG 62, that gun was a blast

 Para Ordnance made paintball guns before they ever got into real steel

and we were the US distributor of the Model 85, they were fun little toys.
We spent a lot of time developing a reloading kit to get the cost of the ammo down.

The M-79 was a Less than lethal unit called the UnGun, as seen in the Steve McQueen movie "Hunter",
they shot out a bean bag using Nitrogen capsules ( like 12 gram CO2s)

We bought up the remaining stock and turned them into paintball grenade launchers

 The Nelspot, the gun that started it all.

 You can see we didn't know squat about eye safety, no Dr Airsoft around then, but we did have a inkling and tried to sell the helmet. we built them by hand in Crestview, I spent many long hours cutting and fitting, in the end, no one gave a crap about being safe then.

 My introduction of airsoft to the US, I spent many hours writers blocked on this page!

 MGC AR180 anyone.

Yes you read right, we offered a conversion kit so that you could power any of the direct air guns with Freon.
Freon, yes. Back then we had no clue, I didn't even know who Al Gore was!
It worked great though and you could buy the stuff for 1.99 a can at the Kmart.

 Spring Tokyo Marui's, ever seen the mac or the M12 before?

And you thought the "Gat" was new for 2010, think again.

I think the Grease gun was a Hudson, but it took plastic ctgs like the Soft air guns,

 The Scorp was so cool, it had a light in it that charged the bb's ( like a tracer unit today), can't remember who made it though. Has anyone seen one of these "Mad Max" guns with the spring loaded ctg's, I remember the box having Max on the front with the shotgun, it must have been a Hudson, they even sold a nylon holster for it. I still think I have one of the holsters floating around

 MGC 745, what a dream gun,

 We bought out Daisy that year of all the "soft air" guns they had, I mean boxcar loads of them 

 yes, there were paint bb's in 1987, and they sucked then too.

Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane,

I wanted to get it in print before my feeble mind forgot more stuff,

where was I ,,,,,,,,,

Oh ya, GET OFF MY LAWN.

Till tomorrow,

Stay Thirsty my Friends

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