Whats an antique?

Rob

Rob

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What is an antique gun in Canada these days?

The old standard definition in non-gun circles was that an antique was "anything more than 100 years old"...but that does not seem to be what gun owners now use as a definition....

...the lines blur between modern muzzle loaders, modern collectibles and antiques, plus the crazy Canadian Firearms Program definitions (that seem useless except for legal arguments in a court)


...so what are most gun people using as a definition of an antique?...and not just the crazy CFP version.
 
The crazy CFPO version, that is not the CPFO's definition, is the CC of C definition.
"Any firearm manufactured before 1898 that was not designed to discharge rim-fire or centre-fire ammunition, and that has not been re-designed to discharge such ammunition, or any firearm prescribed to be an antique firearm."
The "Over 100" dream would include pre-W.W. I Lee-Enfields and 1903 Springfields, et al. That'll never happen in your life time.
Modern muzzle loaders are only non-firearms in the States.
 
There is a confusion. I don't want to know what an antique is so that I can get around some sort of registration or government policy...I'm not that interested in the Canadian governmnet's convoluted self-serving legal definition....I just want to know what gun collectors in Canada generally considered to be an antique firearm...how old?...

The government has a way of re-defining words as if they can physical create facts simply by saying so...I remember when they were going to declare empty brass cases to be "explosives", as if actual definitions of physical fact could be changed by Canadian parliament...

Maybe people just don't get the difference between actual definitions in the English language and government legalese anymore. Sad.
 
In order for me to buy a Snider from Canada - and I live in UK - it must first of all, according to the RCMP, be registered officially as an antique so that it can be de-registered on leaving Canada for UK, where anybody over the age of eighteen can buy it - because is it is

a. Indisputably an antique, having been made sometime around 1870, and

b. A firearm for which no ammunition is currently manufactured, and is therefore classed as Section 58 [obsolete calibre].

If I subsequently want to shoot it, I have to register it as a live-firing, Secton 1 [Rifled firearm].

There is no record, anywhere here in UK, of anybody ever having used a Snider to commit any kind of a crime - it's not as though it is the weapon of choice for holding up the corner store.....
tac
 
Well I tend to think a antique was a firearm made before 1898, however in my personal definition I also include if the firearm was designed before 1898 it is a antique as well. So for me a Gewehr 98 no matter what the year it was made would be a antique to me, however if it is a variation other then the original design (VZ. 24s, K98s etc.) then I wouldn't consider it a antique. That's just me however, as a general rule it should be any firearm made before 1898.
 
That would be a good proposition but it will never fly with the RCMP, they want to remove firearms that are now considered antique, not add to the list.
 
Look at the stickies at the top of this forum.
The CFP's website also gives the legal definition of antique status.
 
I believe the OP is aware of and understands the legal definition of an antique, he was just asking what people personally consider old enough to be generically classed as "antique". I know antique dealers (furniture/dishes/etc.) that say an item has to be at least 100 years old to be an antique. Picture a 1920's gramophone, for example. When it comes to firearms I guess you could use the same kind of "age" system, but there are several firearm designs that are 100 years old yet appear relatively modern.
 
I feel that anything that meets the legal definition of antique is an antique, and that everything else is just old guns. :)
 
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jethunter said:
I feel that anything that meets the legal definition of antique is an antique, and that everything else is just old guns. :)
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"just old guns"?...That is just sad...what else has the government and the RCMP convinced you of?..that empty brass tubes can explode? That the sky is actually red?

I was interested in what thinking men believe constitutes an actual antique these days, not the redefinition of an English word that some jackass bureaucrat in Ottawa thinks he can get away with...

..I guess we're done here...I'm out.
 
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Rob said:
"just old guns"?...That is just sad...what else has the government and the RCMP convinced you of?..that empty brass tubes can explode? That the sky is actually red?

I was interested in what thinking men believe constitutes an actual antique these days, not the redefinition of an English word that some jackass bureaucrat in Ottawa thinks he can get away with...

..I guess we're done here...I'm out.
Click to expand...


I hope you're done, because I'm embarassed for you. You need to calm yourself or maybe you should just join a drama club somewhere.

OLD GUNS is no insult in my mind. I've spent the better part of 30 years fixing, exploring, and reloading for OLD GUNS. No government jackass or any other kind is qualified to tell me what to call my own property, and that includes you.

Making up your own definitions of words is like inventing your own language - it's really clever except nobody knows what you're talking about.
 
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When I post on this forum, it's about an antique as defined by the CFC, or any firearm, if the discussion centres on the use of blackpowder. Isn't that this forum's intent?

If we went with a forum entitled "100 years old or older", there'd be a huge blurring of lines with "Hunting", "Milsurps", etc. Not to mention it would be a moving target that invites whining: "My gun was made in 1920 - it's no fair that we can't discuss it until 2020!" What we discuss now would be lost in that mess....
 
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