I know a few newbs coming up into the field, millennial guys that will shoot an A5 Stalker, but, low and behold, they want a double, just not one that they have to play games with ammunition to use. The beards and tattoos throw me, but, they are guys who are inheriting hunting camps or spots in them, and they will be the guys I see in the field, for the most part, from now on.
I owned guns like the E C Green. I appreciate them, but, no longer use one. The price you have on it, and the lack of it moving demonstrates that it is a piece that has fallen from favor. Different people have different ideas about that, but, it is hard to argue it hasn’t happened.
The beard guys are probably much closer to my age than the average board member on here (I am even debatably a millennial). I don't know anyone else my age who is into doubles, old doubles, or even hunts really, but I like those things and expect others like myself will eventually grow to appreciate them as well provided there is reasonable access and exposure.
In addition to classic doubles, I have owned a few Citoris and a Silver Pigeon, and just got bored with them very quickly. No feel, and no soul. The case of my Leech SLE smells hauntingly of century old oil and tobacco and creates this fascinating link between the past and the present for me. I also enjoy learning or attempting to learn the provenance of these items that have lived through the entirety of the 20th century and into the 21st. I think that sort of thing appeals to many people intuitively, like, say, quirky British bicycles, vintage vehicles, or weird tea pots. There are some minor annoyances to owning old guns, but those are easily overcome once the interest is stoked.
What I also find is that everywhere I take an old double, people of all ages are pretty fascinated by it and want to know more about it so I think there is the potential for an expansion of the hobby, it is just a question of how to bridge that gap. Notably, my first gun ever was a 1921 LC Smith featherweight 12 in decent shape that I paid $300 for a pawn shop in 2012. I had pretty much no experience in guns or shooting at that point. I had a gunsmith glue the hairline cracks at the lock plates for $100 and I was in business and shooting for a total investment of $400. I later sold it for over $600 and now have "graduated" to British SLEs. In any event, vintage doubles are financially accessible to pretty much every budget in my opinion. Frankly, if you shoot a lot, the main expenditure is ammo, not the implement itself anyway, right?
I could write ten pages about why I think this and other hobbies are stagnating, but my analysis would likely be anecdotal and the effort misspent. The one thing that I can recommend is that anyone who laments the demise of the hobby make some effort to spread it beyond your natural social and demographic boundaries...might help, might not, but at least an attempt was made.
