Quote Originally Posted by Vega5 View Post
I apologize for the side question. Let say you now get to a point with your current shooting sport and you have 30 guns and you're not in the mood to compete anymore. Can you then before a collector, let's say with a "modern combat" theme and license all those under collector? Or can you be a dedicated sports shooter and maintain the minimum required and also be a collector for subsequent guns?
"Modern combat" theme would be worth a try but in practise you would probably have to massage your existing collection a bit because an acceptable Field of Interest (FoI) typically has quite a narrow focus. You might have to get rid of some, but in turn you might be able to replace them with others. I would guess that you wouldn't be able to transpose your entire collection from dedicated sports shooter status to collector status in one go and in a single FoI. You would need to find several common threads linking the firearms including aspects such as time period, manufacturer, calibre or a specific discipline within "combat shooting" or anything other thread you can think of and convince your peers that evaluate you that your interest is genuine & the FoI is valid. If you were determined to keep your entire collection "as is" you would probably have to develop more than one FoI. I know collectors that have created collections of what one would loosely describe as "modern combat" so it is possible but don't believe for a moment that it is straightforward.

In collecting you are only limited by your imagination and your ability to convince your peers of the validity of your theme but I promise you it is NOT an easy way out. Although we all love shooting, collecting is viewed as a bit more of an academic occupation and your outlook has to be adjusted accordingly.