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mickey - I don't recall disparaging those that sold doubles overseas for purely monetary reasons - only the shortsightdeness of those who, not realising their true worth, panicked and sold them off when they saw autos going into the crusher after Port Arthur. Perhaps one of those unfortunate confluences of history that this happened when the A$ was weak. I have sold stuff overseas myself - but only to finance getting into something better - and I have had this hoary old argument thrown at me about doing the needfull and giving priortiy to Aussie buyers, even if it meant settling for less spondoola. My attitude it - it goes to whoever has got the most readies at the time! I was merely chronicling the history of the BGRC, and noting the fact that, for one little moment in history, Aussie afficionados of heavy doubles had it pretty good - probably too good, because they thought it would never end. Doubles were bought (and sold) like there was "no tommorrow". But there was, and as you know, the supply in India dried up - but some here still didn't understand their good fortune and flogged them off overseas (usually too cheaply!), from where they will never return, without realising that these were very rare things. Easy come - easy go! The Poms tried to emulate the succes of the BGRC with the Express Rifle Association (ERA), but soon found that, even in the country that they were made, there were not enough to sustain a club. Sadly, that is the situation that the BGRC is currently in now, and it is in some measure, self-inflicted by adopting rule and class structures that provided no incentive to hanging on to collectable double. In the club's hey-dey, even H&H's David Winks's eyes would boggle at the number of their doubles at H&H Shoots! Probably never as many in the H&H showroom at one time! It is the demise of that once great club that I lament - sorry if you interpreted that to be regret about the loss of the rifles (regretable as that is) or just sour-grapes about not being offered one at a "mates-rates"! I did manage to hang on to a few - and those that went only made way for my other love - Pommie shotguns!

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