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There was issue No.1, The Gun Digest, copywrite 1944. All the pictures are black & white. There is no back cover photo.
The 162 pages cover current firearms and competition shooting, military arms, ballistic tables, sights and scopes, even dressing game. A Q&A section closes the book.
Attachment 219906
The Second Annual edition was printed in 1946. 162 pages covering most of the same topics as the 1st edition. One curious article discusses discontinued guns. Again there is no back cover photo.
Attachment 219907
The Third Edition, 1947 remains mostly the same topics as the 2nd edition and retains the 162 pages. There is more design attention to the cover and index pages, including a back cover photo.
Attachment 219908
The Fourth Annual Edition, copywrite 1948. It remains at 162 pages, there is more design artwork though the back page cover is the same as the 3rd edition. This edition begins the Index to Manufactures. Earl Naramore has an article on Handloading, the first such article of the series.
Attachment 219910
The Fifth Annual Edition, copywrite 1950, 1951 edition. This is the trans formative year, John T. Amber takes over as Editor-in-Chief. His vision and leadership would make the Gun Digest the premier firearms publication for shooters, hunters and collectors. He greatly expanded the content to give new reloading tools the same coverage as firearms. This edition has 224 pages with descriptive color cover photos. In addition DBI books reprinted the 5th edition in 1977 as a tribute to John Amber's dedication and leadership.
Attachment 219909
Pressman, You Rock!
That is a collection!
Great dissertation, Ken. John Amber was in a class by himself—knew his guns, knew his facts and knew how to write. He held everybody else to those same high standards.
I read somewhere that he worked in the gun department of Abercrombie and Fitch in Chicago. Must have done it for the discounts, because he had a mind-boggling gun collection, and, of course, the hands-on knowledge.
Alas, I simply don’t have room for a dedicated collection of Gun Digests. I have a few, here and there, but never saw that pattern in the early ones you illustrate. I collected Gun Digest Treasuries until they started to repeat stuff from other Gun Digest Treasuries, and have all the Handloader’s Digests that Ken Warner and Bob Bell edited. Now they’re barely worth reading.
The Digest and Bible are chock full of good info on old reloading tools. The problem is time to search through them to find it. Then figuring out some way to remember where I found what.
This problem is only going to get worse when Floodgate turns over his papers to the archive.
Old post---New info/subject-- sorta. Is there any interest in a large file of Ross Seyfried's articals and columns ?
Pepe Ray
Pepe Ray, there probably is but your question makes this a phishing post and can get you in trouble.
If you want, you should post them in Swap and sell only.
Press man; Thanks for the advice. I'm trying to figure out my options as to how to handle the disposition of the material.
If there is no interest I'll use a match. Shed some tears, and move on.
Pepe Ray