I am also reasonably sure the pile was picked over before the fire. Thirty yrs. ago a local gunsmith/gunshop owner told me the guns on his racks were all junk and then showed me his personal collection. All heavily engraved doubles, drillings, veirlings, cape guns etc. He told me he was an armorer in the German army in WWII. Part of his job was to crush the bbls. and receivers of guns that the Nazis' confiscated from the towns they conquered, and then the scrap was sent back to be made into tanks and U-boats. He said he crushed a lot of real good guns, but the really really nice one were stashed and smuggled to the U.S. after the war when he moved here. Unbeleivable stuff, and probably rusting away now as even then there was fine dry rust forming on many of them, and it would keep a guy busy for a year to clean and oil them. The guy was an absolute nut and trips to his shop were always entertaining...like the time a 5 yr. old kid got away from his Dad and found a loaded Mauser machine pistol behind the counter and was waving it around at the customers. Memories.
