It's my obsession

Collecting is an admirable hobby, agrees Roger Field, as a collection of Winchesters came to the market. But to what lengths should you go to add to your hoard?

- Roger Field

THE Pope has been busy canonising deceased folk of late; making them into saints and, in the Monopoly game of death, sending them straight to Heaven, avoiding Hell and passing straight through Purgatory. The Pope should consider the late Max Gau as the patron saint of secret collectors. This misunderstood category lacks a patron saint; a glaring omission that needs rectifying. Let me expand. On 28 November, Bonhams Modern Sporting Guns auction sold the third and final part of Max (soon to be Saint Max, I trust) Gau’s definitive collection of fine (and superfine) Winchester rifles. Monsieur Gau, he was French, spent a quarter of a century buying nothing but Winchesters; collecting them and shooting them. There were 100 in this sale, meaning, this being Part 3, he had about 300 at his death. The foreword to the catalog should serve as his nomination for sainthood in the weapons hoarding category: “The extent of his passion for Winchesters remained a secret from his family, a secret which was only revealed after his passing.” (How I hate that American word – ‘passing’; ‘after he fired his last cartridge’ would have read better). What a glorious epitaph for 25 years of deceit, determination, and massive expenditure. A smuggler supreme. Marvelous!