Kiss of the Black Widow

The morbid truth about 'funeral guns'

It is difficult to imagine a more exacting clientele than today's buyers of "best" guns. Only the finest metalwork satisfies, only walnut so exotically figured it flirts with the impractical is good enough, and only a handful of overworked engravers meet the standards of the connoisseurs. This has led to an anomaly whereby some of the world's most affluent collectors are waiting a decade or more to have guns delivered. A backlash is inevitable, and some day it may go as far as taking the form of plain, unadorned guns.

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